Object Type
Pâte-sur-pâte ('paste on paste') is extremely labour-intensive and therefore expensive to buy. This vase was made for the collectors' market and its complexity means that it was aimed at the very richest of clientele, to act as a demonstration both of its owner's knowledgeable taste and of Minton's technical and artistic expertise. It was intended solely for display and its owner was expected to provide very special presentation.

Subjects Depicted
Classical subjects represented the highest possible taste. They suggested familiarity with Greek and Latin and an aristocratic, expensive education. Genuinely ancient artefacts, such as those excavated on sites in Rome at the beginning of the 19th century, were collected by artists, writers and academics, but by the 1890s the newly rich could purchase their way into this exclusive intellectual fraternity by buying new objects decorated with ancient motifs. Minton's called multi-coloured versions such as this Pompeiian or Etruscan.

Materials & Making
Pâte-sur-pâte is one of the most distinctive and original of British Victorian ceramic forms and is entirely synonymous with Minton. The company had tried versions of it from the late 1850s, but the true technique was introduced into the production with the hiring of Marc-Louis-Emanuel Solon, who came with the skills and technical knowledge from Sèvres, near Paris, in 1870. First, the basic form and some of the relief were cast. Then the extended and finely detailed sculptural work was constructed, painstakingly, with the gradual layering, firing and and carving of liquid clay (slip). Some pieces took as long as sixty days to complete.