This vase is a purely decorative work of acute technical refinement from later in Lucie Rie’s career. Probably executed in 1981, the same year that Rie received a DBE, the ceramic shows a stylish loosening of the studio pottery tradition. Convention dictates that a potter should fire their decorative vessels twice: once to fix the clay form (bisque firing) and again to fix the glaze. Rie would use only a single firing, however, applying a glaze to fragile ‘greenware’ – pottery which has been shaped but not fired – and then firing both at once. This heightened the risk involved in the firing process, allowing for the possibility of simultaneous structural and decorative failures in the kiln. The finished works which survived this daring process are unmistakeable for their virtuosity. This example not only retained its complex shape, which consists of a thin base and neck, a swollen middle, and a flared rim; it emerged from the kiln with a subtle combination of decorative incisions (‘sgraffito) and bronze-brown manganese glazing, which has been allowed to bleed along the inside lip of the rim, creating an organic effect in contrast to the object’s overall effect of terse precision. Such effects were carefully calculated and, as with all accomplished potters, arrived at after many unsuccessful trials. Rie was celebrated for her wide variety of glazes, of which the bronze-like manganese surface seen on this vase is a highly distinctive example. A closely similar example of this vase, dated 1981, is in the collection of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts (fig. 1). The shape, glazing and ‘sgraffito decoration of the two vases are almost identical. It was given to the Centre by Lady Lisa Sainsbury on her death in 2014. Both this vase and that in the Sainsbury Centre combine bled and sharp-edged glazing, suggesting that this variegation was a wholly intentional formal contrast. Both are distinguished examples of Rie’s late style of elaborate, non-functional pottery.