What is this thing?

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Arabia Finland pottery for what? (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 weeks ago by MaddestMax to c/whatisthisthing

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Found this at an estate sale. It’s like a bowl that’s 3/4 covered. I thought it might be a dried flower vase for a wall, but there’s no place on the back to hang it. No inventions for smokables. Anyone have any ideas what it is?

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

Scrolled through this online museum for arabia stuff but didn't find that design. They don't claim to have everything though, just some 2000+ designs..

http://arabia.kokoelma.fi/etusivu_esittely.aspx

But there should be more info on the bottom to help identify it! Something like this, that would hopefully have name of the series

Edit: found this posting on a Finnish site:

https://www.tori.fi/recommerce/forsale/item/15126547

Still no idea what it's for but it's listed as a bowl. Probably just an art piece of a bowl without a specific purpose. Designer's name is Gunnel Sallmen

Edit2: More info on some Japanese website, no idea how credible. http://www.hamon-okayama.jp/item/583/?mode=pc

Machine translation below:

Manufacturer: ARABIA.
■Series: Art Department Vase.
■Size (cm): φ13, height 3.5.
■Era: 60S.
■Design: Gunnel Salmen.
This is a flat vase made by Arabia's art department, the Art Department. It was designed by Gunnel Salmen. The Arabia Art Department was an art department that did not aim for mass production, but allowed creators to create freely.
Finland's most famous designers, such as Kaj Franck and Kaipianen, were on staff.
The number of pieces produced was very small, making it very rare even in Finland.

[–] MaddestMax 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Wow!!! You’re a legend!! 🙏🏻 Thank you! I can’t believe you found it. Fascinating!! You gotta tell me, how long did it take you to find this? I spent maybe 20 and gave up. Lol! You are very impressive! You have my gratitude!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Thanks, like an hour or a bit more :D was a lot of fun though, learned a lot on a topic I have no reason to research. Unfortunately I saw your post while already laying on bed and ADHD kicked in with a promise of dopamine if I sacrificed some sleep

Embarrassingly the silver bullet was to cave in and do a Google reverse image search, found the 2 listings in like 5min lmao

[–] MaddestMax 2 points 3 weeks ago

Ha! I know exactly what you mean! That urge to find the info even when you don’t really care about the subject. Sucks you in. And then you have some great useless info. :) Well, it’s much appreciated and you definitely get the solve credit! 👊🏻