c. 1853-1858

Jardiniere

1786 - 1922

This large jardiniere, encircled with cranes flying through trees, draws its images of cranes in flight from Japanese ukiyo-e prints. However, because the birds are pictured at different levels of flight and varied wing positions as they circle the jardiniere, scholars have suggested that the unknown artist must have been aware of the zoetrope, a nineteenth-century pre-film animation device that produced the illusion of movement by displaying a progressive sequence of drawings through narrow slits in a revolving drum that showed the images in apparent motion.