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Garniture vase

Garniture vase
Maker:  Worcester Porcelain Manufactory
Decorator:  Jefferyes Hammett O'Neale
 ...
Garniture vase
Garniture vase
Maker:  Worcester Porcelain Manufactory
Decorator:  Jefferyes Hammett O'Neale
 ...
Garniture vase Maker: Worcester Porcelain Manufactory Decorator: Jefferyes Hammett O'Neale Porcelain (soft paste or soapstone), enamel, gilt 1768-1770
Status
Not on view
Label Text

"The obligations you are continually laying me under, are so great that I am quite overwhelmed and perfectly ashamed of myself for receiving them…the Jarrs came very safe…[they are] fine and exceedingly handsome, they shall occupy the place you have named for them." - George Washington to Samuel Vaughan, Mount Vernon, November 18, 1786

English merchant Samuel Vaughan's generosity still overwhelms visitors to Mount Vernon. In 1785, Vaughan shipped a costly Italian marble mantelpiece from his own country estate in England to be installed in Mount Vernon's "New Room". One year later, these striking, baluster-shaped garniture vases arrived. Their opulent dark blue grounds - a color perfected at Worcester in the late 1760s - marvelously frame the exotic landscapes with animals contained in the reserves. Displayed on the mantel, these vases were a focal point of the room and a signal of wealth and sophistication.

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Date1768-1770
Decorator (Irish, 1734 - 1801)
Geography Made - England
DimensionsOverall: 12 3/4 in., 4.31 lb. (32.39 cm, 1.96 kg)
Credit LinePurchase, 1963
Object numberW-972/A
DescriptionBaluster-shaped vase with flared neck and mouth, and scrolled handles with foliate terminals at shoulders. Vase is decorated in an underglaze "mazarine" or wet blue ground with overglaze gilt scrollwork framing two reserves, one featuring tigers beneath a tree and the other a landscape with water and a large tree and fence in the center foreground, both painted in colors. Additional gilt decoration includes a foliate band around interior and exterior of mouth, butterflies below reserves, and fretwork around base.

One of three garniture vases, with W-972/B and W-2260/A & B.

SignedOverglaze signature painted at lower left of both reserves (in brown): "ON invr&c,".
Published ReferencesSusan Gray Detweiler, "The Ceramics," Antiques 135/ 2 (February 1989): 500, pl. IX.

Susan Gray Detweiler, George Washington's Chinaware (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1982), 97-102

Marian S. Carson, "Washington Furniture at Mount Vernon, II: The Banquet Hall," American Collector 16, no. 4 (May 1947): 6-7, fig. 2.

Benson J. Lossing, Mount Vernon and Its Associations, Historical, Biographical, and Pictorial (New York: W. A. Townsend & Co., 1859), 174-75.

Benson J. Lossing, "Arlington House, the Seat of George Washington Parke Custis, Esq.," Harper's New Monthly Magazine 7, no. 40 (September 1853): 442.
MarkingsUnderglaze mark painted on underside (in blue): factory of a Worcester square or fret mark.
Mount Vernon's object research is ongoing and information about this object is subject to change. For information on image use and reproductions, click here.
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