Vase MANIA

The National Trust possesses one of the greatest and most diverse collections of ceramics in the world, ranging in time from Ancient Greece to the Arts and Crafts movement. Acquired over 400 years, each of these objects has a story to tell: of exploration

The sons of England’s nobility were sent to Italy as part of their classical and cultural education, where they collected art and antiquities, especially following the discovery of the ruins of Herculaneum in 1738 and Pompeii in 1748. However, increasingly it was not necessary to visit Italy to appreciate these discoveries. As early as 1748, the engraver and merchant Gerard Van der Gucht, based in Bloomsbury, London, announced in the General Advertiser, ‘A Parcel of curious antique vases (lately brought from Italy) taken out of the subterraneous Ruins of Herculaneum, a Town that has lain buried almost 1700 years’. Publications of the finds with engraved plates were published in Paris between 1752 and 1767. These finds were particularly influential on designers and tastemakers in France, where the goût grec, the earliest phase of the neoclassical style, was conceived. It prompted a widespread enthusiasm for the decorative display of vases – identified at the time as ‘vase madness’.

From 1769, the ceramics entrepeneur Josiah Wedgwood and his erudite partner, Thomas Bentley, capitalised on this new enthusiasm for vases, which had even spread to the royal household. Wedgwood produced hundreds of vase shapes available in a variety of materials, glazes and finishes. His cream- coloured earthenware, dubbed Queen’s ware, like his elaborate table service designed for Catherine II, Empress of Russia, was aimed at Britain’s aristocracy, with the knowledge that ‘the common ware’ of the nobility would be adopted by the ‘middling sorts’. By 1774, both Wedgwood and William Duesbury,

Wedgwood’s creamcoloured earthenware, dubbed Queen’s ware, was aimed at Britain’s aristocracy

owner of a porcelain manufactory in Derby, had opened London showrooms, which became important social venues.

With the conclusion of the Seven Years War in 1763 and the reopening of the French borders, the English nobility flocked to Paris, ordering Sèvres table services, vases or smaller items for the toilette and tea. Fashionable Sèvres or Paris biscuit (unglazed) porcelain figures for table surtouts, or their imitations made at the Derby manufactory from 1771, were all the rage – ‘A plateau full of biscuit figures and vases with flowers, &c’, was recorded in 1811 at Saltram House, Devon. As early as 1788, they were displayed as ornaments or under glass domes to protect them from soot and dust.

Demand for Chinese porcelain diminished with the rise of English manufacturers, who could produce wares in the latest patterns more e ciently, but Chinese novelties, such as views of the warehouses, or hongs, in Guangzhou (Canton), and monochrome-glazed vases were much sought after. ABOVE Among the myriad vases at Saltram House, Devon, are these cream- coloured earthenware covered vases made at Wedgwood’s factory, Staffordshire, in about 1767– 69