A Happy Man — Ceramic by Arnaud Quercy

About This Artwork

This ceramic sculpture forms the visual companion to a short story of the same name, presenting an egg-shaped head divided into geometric planes of bronze and moss green. The face belongs to someone attending a birth, captured in the hours of careful watch as instruments are prepared, family members gather in anxious hope, and the long-awaited moment approaches with the rising of the full moon.

Created in terre cuite with fine chamotte and finished with beeswax and pigment mixtures, the work uses earth-toned glazes across the geometric facial planes. A rectangular void interrupts the composition where features might be expected, suggesting the focused attention required during these vigil hours. The bronze and moss green surfaces carry both the severity of medical precision and the warmth of anticipated new life.

The piece belongs to the Spells and Magic collection, where enchantment operates through misdirection. The sculpture presents what appears to be the face of someone in white coat attending a delivery, complete with the measured calm and expertise required for such moments. Family members wait beyond the door, asking how much longer, remembering their own quick arrivals, wondering if all proceeds as expected. The work holds the viewer in this suspended anticipation, this moment before emergence.

The work includes certificate of authenticity 20240120-0003. At seventeen centimeters wide, twelve centimeters high, and thirty-seven centimeters deep, the sculpture weighs three point four kilograms.