-
Vase and cover
Richard Chaffers Factory - Enlarge image
Vase and cover
- Place of origin:
Liverpool, England (made)
- Date:
ca. 1760 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Richard Chaffers Factory (manufacturer)
- Materials and Techniques:
Soft-paste porcelain, painted in underglaze blue
- Museum number:
C.8&A-1974
- Gallery location:
British Galleries, room 52d, case 5
Object Type
In 18th-century Britain, fireplaces were thought to look bare when empty and not in use. One solution was to cover the fireplace with a painted chimney-board, and another was to place a large vase in or in front of it. This vase would have been big enough to fill a fireplace. Smaller vases of this shape are shown on carved wooden stands in Thomas Chippendale's Gentleman and Cabinet Makers Director of 1754.
Design & Designing
The potter based the shape on a Chinese vase, but elongated it. Similar landscape decoration is found on Liverpool delftware vases, suggesting that the painter also decorated delftware (tin-glazed earthenware).
Making & Materials
This vase is a very ambitious production, and must have been difficult to throw and fire, especially as the porcelain industry in Britain was only about 15 years old at the time it was made. It was thrown on a wheel, and is about as large as it is physically possible to throw a pot in a single piece, as the internal height is about the length of a person's arm. (Larger pots can be made, but these would have to be thrown in sections and then assembled.)
