POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Notes

This vase was hand painted and gilded in 1913 by Delia Cadden (1884-c 1918) with overglaze decoration featuring five cicadas on a porcelain blank made by L. Bernardaud & Co., Limoges, France, in about 1912. Delia Cadden was a talented china-painter. She often included gum leaves, wattle and flannel flowers in her designs but her favourite motifs for porcelain decoration were Australian Green Grocer Cicadas (Cyclochila australasiae). Painted in various stages of flight or just crawling, their wings and segmented bodies glittering with heavy gilding, they seem to move slowly in a rhythmical dance around the bulbous shoulders of her selected squat vase. This vase features an additional frieze of stylised cicada heads around the neck. Cadden, Delia, Eleanor, May, was the eldest of six children of Robert William Cadden, a grain merchant. In about 1907-1908 she studied china painting under J A Peach at the Sydney Technical College, then continued her studies in the Art Department until about 1911. As a student she exhibited in the 1907 Women's Work Exhibition at Melbourne (although not listed in the Sydney preliminary catalogue). From about 1910 she had a studio in the family residence, Ravenshurst, at Beecroft, and between 1912 and 1917 exhibited with NSW Society of Arts and Crafts. A china-painter of considerable ability she decorated vases, tea and coffee sets, plates, wall plaques and buttons. She used motifs such as Australian and English garden flowers, peacocks and cranes, but excelled in cicada designs. Her later work shows the influence of Oriental art.