Anne Kjaersgaard (1933-1990) Stoneware Pitcher ~1980. La Borne, Linard, Leach, Joulia, Ivanoff Astoul

Magnificent stoneware pitcher from La Borne by Anne KJAERSGAARD circa 1980. Bears a No. 458 on the reverse, unsigned but like many of her creations. Height: 19cm. Provenance: purchased in the 1980s in a village in central France (according to the previous owners), probably La Borne. Perfect condition. I guarantee the authenticity of this piece with 95% certainty; I cannot imagine who else it could be attributed to, especially given the information from the previous owners. This pitcher is characteristic of Anne Kjærsgaard's work, from its very typical shape and reddish-brown stoneware to the blue/grey glaze and abstract decorative effects. Even carving was a common technique. Anne Kjærsgaard (Copenhagen, November 27, 1933 – Neuvy-Deux-Clochers, February 25, 1990) was a French-Danish ceramicist. Daughter of Espen Kjærsgaard and Ingrid Antonie Westergaard, sister of the ceramicist Tonna Elisabeth Born to Kjærsgaard and the painter Søren Kjærsgaard[2], she studied at the Kunsthåndværkerskolen (da) (a design school, which became the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2011) in Copenhagen from 1950 to 1954. She established her first studio in Ringsted, Denmark, in 1955, then worked in Bernard Leach's studio in St Ives from 1956 to 1958, where she learned some of his glazing techniques. She then settled as a potter in France, first in Saint-Amand-en-Puisaye (Nièvre), then in La Borne (Cher) in 1960, where she met the potter Jean Linard, whom she married in Neuvy-Deux-Clochers on November 3, 1964 (divorced on April 10, 1973). They settled in Neuvy-Deux-Clochers, in the hamlet of Les Poteries (near La Borne), in 1961, where they built their house according to a Danish-inspired plan (the house is now listed as a historical monument), in a former flint quarry. They had four children together between 1962 and 1969. In 1964, perhaps early 1965, she and her husband traveled to St Ives in England, where she visited Bernard Leach. He gave them the plans for a wood-fired kiln with three firing chambers, which they built in Les Poteries. She then lived for a few years in Laspeyres, a hamlet in Monbalen bordering Saint-Antoine-de-Ficalba (Lot-et-Garonne). She was invited by the University of Colorado Boulder in 1976. Her stay there lasted six months, where she was a visiting professor. After her stay in the United States, she introduced brown and light blue enamels into her creations. She returned to settle in 1987, in Neuvy-Deux-Clochers in the hamlet of Les Halliers.