Bowl

This thickly walled, nearly spherical bowl is turned from ebony, a dense and hard African wood. The sleek interior contrasts with the bowl’s exterior. Gamperl textured it by carving narrow, regular grooves, turning the bowl 90 degrees, then repeating the carved pattern. He did not sign the vessels’ rounded bottom, so as not to disturb its evenness of form. The artist’s focus on the perfection of form, proportion, and pattern attainable on the lathe recalls the beginnings of modern woodturning in the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods, when objects turned in accordance with regular, mathematical principles were seen to embody the harmony between matter and spirit.