Cris Agterberg & Roger Guerin In Bouffioulx, Art Deco Vase In Green/blue Stoneware, Ca. 1925

CRIS AGTERBERG and ROGER GUERIN, Art Deco stoneware vase, ca. 1925.
A rare artistic collaboration created in Roger Guérin’s workshops (Bouffioulx stoneware) in Belgium around 1925.
Vase signed with Cris Agterberg’s “CA” monogram.
In perfect condition.


Bibliography: “Au Gré du grès, de l’Art Nouveau à l’Art Déco. Roger Guérin and Edgard Aubry"


Roger Guérin (1896–1954) was a highly renowned 20th-century Belgian ceramicist (from Bouffioulx), particularly during the Art Deco period, and a friend of Edgard Aubry. He was born in Belgium in 1896 and showed a keen interest in ceramics. He enrolled at the University of Labor in Charleroi, where he took “pottery” classes with Willem DELSAUX. Transitioning from the Art Nouveau period to Art Deco (between 1915 and 1945), he created vases and sculptures in “GRES SALE GRAND FEU” using a single firing (1300°). He skillfully evolved within the two artistic styles of his time. In 1934, he was appointed PROFESSOR at the Higher University of Decorative Arts of La Cambre in BRUSSELS. Renowned for the perfection of his work, he was approached for numerous artistic collaborations and produced pieces for renowned artists (both Belgian and international) such as Marcel Wolfers, Cris Lebeau, and Cris Agterberg—including “The Kiss,” “The Dance,” and “Meditation” (Amsterdam School in the Netherlands)—as well as Thierry Van Rijswijck, Domien Ingels, Angelo Hecq, François Carion, and others.
He participated in numerous exhibitions, notably winning the silver medal at the INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF DECORATIVE, INDUSTRIAL, AND MODERN ARTS IN PARIS in 1925.
Having gained international recognition, he exhibited at the JENSEN GALLERY in NEW YORK in 1947.
His preferred forms are: the ball-shaped vase, the faceted vase, the geometric (timeless) vase, and sculpture.
His work is comparable to that of Auguste Delaherche, Pierre Adrien Dalpayrat, Émile Lenoble, Léon Pointu, Ernest Chaplet, Decoeur, Paul Jeanneney (known as Loewenguht), Jean Carries, and Bernard Leach...



Cristopher “Cris” Agterberg (1883–1948—Dutch ceramic sculptor) was born in Amsterdam in 1883. Trained at the schools of applied arts in Amsterdam and Elberfeld (Germany), he later settled in Utrecht. A versatile artist, he worked with jewelry, glass, leather, textiles, and ceramics, but considered himself first and foremost a sculptor. During the interwar period, he collaborated with several Dutch decorative arts manufacturers (Leerdam Glassworks, Zenith and Zuid-Holland pottery factories), although he preferred to produce small artisanal series himself (abstract bronzes, terracotta figures) in the style of the Amsterdam School. He is best known for his stylized bronze clocks (1920s), in which zoomorphic motifs and elongated female figures embody the decorative ideal of the Amsterdam School.

Agterberg follows in the footsteps of the great European ceramicists of the turn of the 20th century. The French pioneers Théodore Deck and Edmond Lachenal laid the foundations for modern decorative ceramics. Lachenal, a master of Art Nouveau, profoundly influenced this movement with his organic forms and innovative glazes. Agterberg draws on this legacy, reinterpreting it through the geometric aesthetics of Art Deco. Among his contemporaries were the French artist Lucien Brisdoux (1878–1963), known for his stoneware vases with metallic glazes (gold, platinum), and the Belgian Roger Guérin (1896–1954), a leading figure in Art Deco, who produced several of his works (notably the stoneware sculpture *The Kiss*, circa 1930). Agterberg’s stylized bronze clocks, decorative vases (for example, a 1940 Art Deco copper vase adorned with nude women), and sculpted figures fully embody the Art Deco movement.

Sources: Biography and list of works by C. Agterberg; studies on Lachenal and Deck; entries on Lucien Brisdoux and Roger Guérin.