Sheherazade

Marit Guinness Aschan, artist

1919–2004

Sheherazade, 1968

Where object was made: England, United Kingdom

Material/technique: copper; enamel

Dimensions:
Object Height/Width/Depth (Height x Width x Depth): 77 x 51.5 x 3 cm
Object Height/Width/Depth (Height x Width x Depth): 30 5/16 x 21 7/16 x 1 3/16 in
Mount Dimensions (Height x Width x Depth): 44 1/4 x 34 in

Credit line: Gift of Richard Shields

Accession number: 1968.0040

Not on display

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Originally trained as a painter, Marit Guinness Aschan eventually turned to enamel, finding paint inadequate to express her absorbing interest in the shifting qualities of the sky. She recalls: “I was painting in the sky, and I wanted to produce the sky on earth, and I couldn’t see any other way except to learn to enamel.” Working in enamel requires considerable control and concentration, as its color changes from its raw liquefied state during the firing process. By composing each work of multiple, separately fired layers of enamel, Aschan was able to achieve the shimmering, translucent effect that she was seeking. In this work—Scheherazade, which means “noble lineage” in Arabic—Aschan evokes the legendary Persian queen immortalized as the narrator of One Thousand and One Nights, also known as Arabian Nights, a collection of Middle Eastern folktales written in Arabic.