Craft: An American History

by Glenn Adamson

The Apotheosis of the Toiler, completed in 1910, one of the most extraordinary feats of craftsmanship ever realized in America. Robineau spent more than a thousand hours making the carved porcelain vase, only for it to crack in its initial firing. She persisted, filling the tiny fissures with a paste of ground porcelain and firing it again, this time successfully. She also selectively glazed the piece, to highlight its delicate openwork structure. Robineau had essayed various revival styles previously, and here employed a rather unusual Egyptian idiom, occasionally seen in architecture at the time but virtually unknown in ceramics. The vase’s name derives from its prominent use of scarab beetle iconography, which accounts for the strange crowning motif. These insects gradually roll manure into a perfect sphere, which then becomes a food source. Robineau affixed a carved orb to the vase’s lid, representing a ball of dung. As her allegorical subtitle for the piece suggests, she intended this as an emblem of patient labor.