Vase

Object Type
An ornamental creamware vase with a secondary function as a two-branch candlestick. Not only is it marked 'LP' for Leeds Pottery, but its function is made clear by the title 'Vase Candlestick' in the Leeds Pottery catalogue of 1783.

Time
'Vase madness' extended from smart and expensive ormolu-mounted blue-john vases and the Black Basalt products Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) made in the 1770s, to the later and more humble creamwares produced by many factories in Staffordshire and Yorkshire. Athough a similar, but more elaborately decorated, version of this Leeds Pottery vase-candlestick is shown in the Castleford Pottery catalogue of 1796, the rarity of these objects suggests a strictly limited production. Indeed, the insertion of gilt brass candle arms into soft lead-glazed creamware sockets seems unlikely to have been wholly successful, either structurally or visually.

Design & Designing
Winged harpies copied from Greek sarcophagi have been added to a typical Roman vase shape of the type used for tea urns made of Sheffield plate. Though cheap to produce, once the mould was made, the cream-coloured material is incapable of reproducing the sharpness of detail necessary for Neo-classical design - detail for which the coloured stonewares of Wedgwood and others were ideally suitable. The ormolu candle arms (none of which survive) were traditionally made by specialist 'Branch Makers', who are frequently listed in the 1750s as making candle arms and sconces (wall lights with a bracket and reflective back-plate) for English porcelain figures.