bough-pot
- Museum number
- 1921,1215.14.CR
- Description
-
Pair of bough-pots/crocus-pots; porcelain; yellow ground and panels with ruins painted in colours with gilding.
- Production date
- 1770 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 16.70 centimetres (max height temple front view)
-
Height: 16.70 millimetres (max height temple side view)
-
Length: 21.60 centimetres (Pot with Temple front view)
-
Length: 21.90 centimetres (Pot with Temple side view)
-
Length: 8.50 inches
- Curator's comments
- Text from Dawson 2007:
Bough pots like these, with pierced tops, were made to hold flowers in water, or possibly bulbs or even dried flowers. The combination of highly rococo, scrolled form with neo-classical prints of ruins in pale purple and the striking colour scheme may not have had great appeal to customers of the Worcester factory, since this pair seems to be an uncommon survival. It was evidently considered rare when Mrs Lloyd paid no less than £205 to George R. Harding, dealer in works of art of 18 St James's Square, London, on 5 March 1907 to settle his invoice of 15 February 1907. In this invoice the vases are described as a 'Pair of Worcester scroll-shaped Jardinieres, yellow ground, panels of landscapes painted in puce, lake and turquoise scroll borders'. The gilding used to pick out the scrolls and the outlining of the circular holes show that the bough pots were expensive items for the luxury market, despite the use of prints rather than hand-painted decoration in the three shaped panels.
There are threee prints on each vase. Those at the side are the same on both vases: on the left is a soldier on a pedestal from a print entitled 'The Sepulchre of Cecilia Crassi upon the Appian Way Two Miles from Rome', part of the foreground of an engraving dated 1746 and signed 'Busiri del: J. Smith pin: F. Vivazres sc.', an example of which is in the Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum. The print is found in black on a bowl in the Handley colection. On the same bowl, as well as on a sugar box in another private collection, can be found a print known as the 'Temple Ruin', which has been used on the right side of each bough-pot without the figures at the right. The source has been identified as an engraving entitled 'Ruins of Ancient Rome' after G. P. Panniini (1691/2-1765), published by Robert Sayer in 1756, but the scene in fact seems closer to another Pannini view, one of several on the same print depicting Roman ruins.
Although it has been adapted, the building on the bough pots resembles the 'Temple of Janus' in a print made by Johann Sebastian Müller, published by John Bowles and Robert Sayer in London, 1753. The prints on the centre of each bough-pot have not yet been securely identified, but are also likely to ba after Pannini.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1921
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1921,1215.14.CR
