Blue jasper vase (pair): C.1267.2 & A-1928

Titles

Blue jasper vase (pair)

Maker(s)

Pottery: William Adams

Entities

• Vase
• covered vase

Categories

• Stoneware
• Sprigged stoneware
• Jasper ware

Description

White jasper ware, coated in blue with neoclassical sprig decoration in white

Matching pair of covered ornamental vases on pedestals. Each is made in four parts (including cover), and fixed with an internal metal bolt onto a small raised foot and a square pedestal. The vases are urn shaped, with concave shoulder and a pronounced neck-rim, formed to support a small domed cover. The cover has a central spherical knob. The foot rises to a short, thin column at the urn’s base. The exterior is covered in blue jasper, except for two white ledges above and below the pedestal panels and three thin lines encircling the vase. The blue of the covers is slightly paler than that on the urns and pedestals, although the knobs are a similar colour. The pedestal base is decorated with round palmettes, four to each side; the centre panels each have a figure personifying one of the four seasons, surrounded by a square border of segmented circles. The vase has four small classical figure designs, each enclosed by a medallion frame and stylised, scrolling foliage; there are further foliate designs on the base and shoulder, and radiating around the cover. The interior is white. The underside is recessed, with a central aperture for the bolt.

The neck aperture and cover of C.1267.2 & A-1928 is slightly wider than those of its pair.

Notes

History note: Bought at Hendry and Hill, ‘The Fresiene House’ and ‘The Antiquary’ nos. 3 and 30 Hanover Buildings near the Bayate, Southampton, on 9 September 1918, for £30, By Dr Glaisher, Trinity College, Cambridge. Previously owned by Mr A. E. Clarke, collector, who sold them at Sotheby’s, c.1918, for 'more than £20'.

Legal notes

Dr J.W.L. Glaisher Bequest, 1928

Place(s) associated

• Tunstall ⪼ Staffordshire ⪼ England

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1928) by Glaisher, J. W. L., Dr

Dating

18th Century, Late
Circa 1780 CE - 1805 CE

Note

Dr Glaisher makes particular note of the fine modelling of the figures on these vases (Notebook no 23) . He continues: ‘in general I do not care for jasper ware […] but I was struck by these vases, and made them an exception […] they so much impressed me by their colour and delicacy’

Jasper, an unglazed fine stoneware with an impervious surface sheen, was introduced by Wedgwood in the mid 1770s. Other factories soon produced their own versions. Jasper was made in white or solid colour, often blue, and later by dipping in coloured slip. The coloured body was often decorated with sprigs - designs formed in small plaster, clay or brass moulds – applied when the clay was leather hard. The Four Seasons sprigs for these vases may have been modelled by William Adams himself (see Furniss).

William Adams (1746-1805) ran a pot works in Tunstall from 1779 until his death in 1805; the business then continued under his son Benjamin until 1821. They produced a wide range of products, but particularly stoneware and jasper ware jugs, mugs featuring neo-classical, hunting or contemporary scenes. In jasper they made ornamental vases, candlesticks, cameos and medallions, as well as tea sets and more unusual shapes. Vases, typically with classical or heraldic decorations, were made in a wide variet of sizes (up to at least 17 ins, 430 cm) and were sold separately from the pedestal, which typically cost an extra 2/6d (two shillings and sixpence).

School or Style

Neoclassical