by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Published on June 19, 2020 / Updated on September 29, 2026
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
About the painting
A pale blue pot remains at the centre, but the world around it has changed. Short dark lines and pale grey, cream and ochre shapes extend across Piet Mondrian's Still Life with Gingerpot II. The painting is RKD B18, dated 1912, now Kunstmuseum Den Haag 0334313. It revisits the subject of his 1911 Gingerpot I on a larger canvas and carries it into a more fractured, Cubist arrangement. The two pictures are related, but they are separate museum objects and separate stages of the motif.[1][2][3]
At a glance
Two gingerpot paintings
Contents
- What can still be recognised?
- Why is the composition more abstract?
- How do the two gingerpot paintings differ?
- Where does it fit in Mondrian's development?
- The same subject, a changed question
What can still be recognised?
The round ginger pot is the clearest object. Its light blue body and dark lip stand out against a mostly neutral field. It is not rendered as a smoothly modelled vessel: parts of its outline are broken or pressed against neighbouring shapes. Even so, the pot gives the viewer a secure point from which to explore the rest of the picture.
 The Red Tree Piet Mondrian.jpg)
Around it, intersecting vertical and horizontal strokes form a loose framework. Small planes overlap, and some lines end before they fully define an object. Pale whites, greys and ochres move across the surface, with dark marks setting different visual rhythms. The pot seems embedded within this lattice rather than placed in front of a stable interior.
In the first gingerpot painting, a glass, tabletop objects, window and studio setting can be followed much more easily. The Guggenheim's comparison observes that those details cease to be readable in the second version, while the ginger pot remains. That account is more precise than saying that the second picture contains no objects at all.[3]
Why is the composition more abstract?
Mondrian has reorganised the still life around repeated angles and small planes. In the earlier canvas, an object's edge often helps separate it from its neighbour. Here an edge may also act as one line in an overarching grid-like structure. The boundaries of the pictured things and the structure of the painting begin to do the same work.
The Guggenheim explains this change in relation to Cubism and to Paul Cézanne's example of breaking forms into colour facets. It describes the second gingerpot as a far greater degree of abstraction than the first. The pot is still a central motif, but the surrounding forms no longer provide an ordinary room in which to place it. The balance of the canvas comes from the distribution of light and dark, verticals and horizontals, and shapes around the centre.[3]
This is not yet one of Mondrian's later paintings made solely from strong black lines, flat primary colours and white rectangles. Its greys and ochres, visible brushwork and remaining pot connect it to a different problem: how to retain a subject while making the whole surface more structurally active.
Watch: Piet Mondrian
See his studio, the move toward geometric abstraction and the rhythms of his New York paintings.
Piet Mondrian: Abstract Painting as We Know It
Curator Michael White explores the paintings and Mondrian’s studio as an abstract space.
Watch on YouTubeHow do the two gingerpot paintings differ?
Still Life with Gingerpot I is B2, made in 1911, measuring 65.5 × 75 cm and numbered 0334312 at Kunstmuseum Den Haag. II is B18, dated 1912 by RKD and the collecting museum, measuring 91.5 × 120 cm, numbered 0334313. Guggenheim's own object entry describes II as 1911–12; the slight date wording difference does not make it the same work as I.[1][2][3][4][5]
The size difference is substantial. This second picture is broader and taller, giving its dispersed marks more room. The pale pot is still near the middle, but the surrounding web carries the eye to the edges. In the first, the tabletop objects and coloured studio interior provide a more direct sense of depth. Comparison therefore reveals a changed method rather than merely a change in title.
Both museum object records name the Salomon B. Slijper bequest. The Guggenheim has catalogued the works and shown them on long-term loan, which can cause ownership to be reported loosely elsewhere. The Hague museum's object records provide the collection and inventory numbers used on these pages.[2][3][4]
Where does it fit in Mondrian's development?
RKD places this canvas among Mondrian's Paris 1912–14 works, after the first gingerpot in its Amsterdam 1911 section. The two catalogue positions make the chronology explicit. The Museum of Modern Art's retrospective account uses the paired versions to illustrate the artist's growing use of Cubist vocabulary.[1][5][6]
That historical setting supports a close look at the painting itself. The pot is the central form, while many other objects retreat into a field of marks. The result does not simply ask whether we can name each item. It invites us to weigh how a rounded centre holds together scattered rectangular and angular pieces. The persistent motif lets the viewer see a new way of building a picture.
An earlier Dutch study adds two useful pieces of history to the comparison. A. B. Loosjes-Terpstra proposed that this second still life was the Nature morte shown by Mondrian at the 1912 Moderne Kunstkring exhibition in Amsterdam; she phrased the identification as probable, so the exhibition title should not be treated as certain proof of this object's display. She also reported a conversation with painter Otto van Rees, who said the canvas was painted in Paris and remembered the ginger pot among objects in Mondrian's Paris studio. That recollection supports a Paris setting, while remaining a later witness account rather than an artist's dated note. The same study read the first painting as a formal exploration already emphasizing verticals and horizontals, and the second as a fuller transformation of those relationships.[7]
The same subject, a changed question
Because the pot survives as a recognizable centre, the second version lets a reader measure what has changed around it. In Gingerpot I, the table and studio still provide a navigable setting. In this 1912 canvas, edges can belong at once to a vessel and to the larger lattice of marks. The pot's blue is therefore a point of orientation rather than the basis for rebuilding a complete room. The museum and Guggenheim comparison support a transformation of the same motif, but neither requires every pale plane in B18 to be assigned to a lost household object.[3][4]
Mondrian artworks directory
Frequently asked questions
Which painting is Still Life with Gingerpot II ?
When was it painted?
What is its size and medium?
The museum lists oil on canvas, 91.5 × 120 cm.[2]
Can the pot still be seen?
Yes. Its pale blue rounded body remains the most legible object, even as the surrounding still life becomes a network of planes and lines.[3]
Discussion
Which parts of the pot remain recognisable?
Reader Insights
Where do object edges merge with the surrounding structure?
What changes beside the 1911 first version?
What changes beside the 1911 first version?
Join the Conversation
Share what you notice in this painting below.
References
- RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History, Paris 1912–14 catalogue, B18. View source.
- Kunstmuseum Den Haag, official Still life with gingerpot 2 record, 0334313, 1912, oil on canvas, 91.5 × 120 cm. View source.
- Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Jennifer Blessing, Still Life with Gingerpot II, object essay and comparison of the pair. View source.
- Kunstmuseum Den Haag, official Still life with gingerpot 1 record, 0334312. View source.
- RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History, Amsterdam 1911 catalogue, B2. View source.
- Museum of Modern Art, 1995 retrospective announcement discussing the two gingerpot versions. View source.
- A. B. Loosjes-Terpstra, Moderne kunst in Nederland 1900–1914, “Het werk,” pp. 154–55 and note 4: probable 1912 exhibition identification, comparison with the first gingerpot, and Otto van Rees's recollection. View source.
- Lead image credit. Piet Mondrian, Still Life with Gingerpot II, 1912, oil on canvas, 91.5 × 120 cm, Kunstmuseum Den Haag, 0334313, RKD B18.
