pot-pourri-vase
- Museum number
- 1923,0716.36.CR
- Description
-
Pot-pourri-vase and cover, porcelain, moulded, of urn form with domed cover surmounted by a pomegrante finial, neck pierced with a lozenge and circular hole pattern near the neck and on the cover, where there are lozenges only, the body and cover ornamented with applied festoons of flowers in relief, painted in dry blue on the body with floral garlands; gilt finial, rims, around base of vase and scroll design around foot.
- Production date
- 1770-1775 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 26.60 centimetres (to top of finial)
-
Height: 10.30 inches
-
Width: 15 centimetres (max with cover)
- Curator's comments
- There are several other comparable vases like this - eg in the Zorensky Coll.
Text from Dawson 2007:
The precisely pierced decoration on the upper part of these vases and on their covers shows that they were intended for pot-pourri. Vases were usually sold as part of a set of three or five for display on a mantlepiece or commode (chest with a marble top, placed against a wall or between windows). The rich applied flower decoration, the self-confident grape finial and the refined gilding all mark the vases out as pieces destined for the elite market. They were perhaps destined for an aristocratic London town house.
In the 1770s British pottery and porcelain factories made hundreds of different new vases, many based on classical forms and others on designs by earlier artists. The spherical vase is a relatively conventional shape but the urn-shaped vase seems to be an original creation, although it may have been inspired by metal examples. A variation on this vase exists in the Marshall Collection at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, without the applied flowers and with rather more lavish painted decoration.
French influence on Worcester seems to occur with a considerable delay. As Dinah Reynolds correctly commented, the drily painted blue bouquets are inspired by flower decoration on Vincennes porcelains, principally tea wares; these were in production in the early 1750s.
The surviving invoice for the urn-shaped vase from Albert Amor under the date 26 march 1923 describes it as:
a very unusual Worcester Vase and Cover, of urn shape - the top of the Vase and also the cover, perforated with trellis design picked out with gilt rosettes. The body and also the cover, are boldly modelled in white with swags of flowers and foliage fixed with gilt ribbons and the groundwork is painted with flowers, foliage and insects in cobalt blue. The cover being surmounted with a gilt fruit-shaped knob.
The price was £30.
- Location
- Not on display
- Condition
- April 2006 - rim of vase repaired, one small flower missing around neck, bow of one gilt ribbon missing, chips to a few flowers; chip to finial of cover and some chips to flowers.
- Acquisition date
- 1923
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1923,0716.36.CR
