Art Nouveau era French Sevres ceramic vase from the atelier of Optat Milet / Paul Milet. Decorated with tube lining and mauve purple and green glazes with pops of yellow and pink, with a lovely floral motif against a sage green ground. Marked for Paul Milet, circa 1900. The Milet family often worked in collaboration with decorators and ceramicists, this vase bearing the signature V. Yung for Victor Yung, one of several decorator collaborators. Measures 6 1/8" height x 2 3/4" widest x 1 5/8" diameter opening. In overall good antique condition. There are some glaze cracks to the interior opening of the vase likely from the making/firing. There is a small edge chip to the top, and a small chip to the bottom rim.
Paul Milet, son of Optat Milet, came from a well-defined lineage of potters. Optat Milet began his career as a modeler for Sèvres in 1862, and opened his own ceramics factory in 1866. Paul Milet entered his father's pottery workshop in the town of Sèvres in 1894 and for the next 36 years produced high-quality ceramics sold through Parisian shops and interior decorators. Because his aesthetic preferences kept pace with the fashions of the era, his early works like this vase, favours the floral and whiplash ornamentation associated with the Art Nouveau movement. By comparison, his later work is serene yet streamlined, with simple forms flambe glazed in high-contrast bold jazz-age colors indicative of the Art Deco era.