Mason's Ironstone Mazarine Blue Garniture of Three Vases, Polychrome Flowers Circa 1820–1830

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Mason's Ironstone Mazarine Blue Garniture of Three Vases, Polychrome Flowers
Circa 1820–1830

A garniture of three Mason's Ironstone vases in … Read more Mason's Ironstone Mazarine Blue Garniture of Three Vases, Polychrome Flowers
Circa 1820–1830

A garniture of three Mason's Ironstone vases in a deep mazarine blue, the shade of cobalt that turns almost purple in lamplight, painted with loose sprays of pink and white flowers, ferny green leaves and gilt sprigs, with gilt flowering foliage on the necks and a gilt line at the rim, shoulder and foot. Each vase is hexagonal, tapering toward the foot, with a waisted neck and a flared trumpet rim glazed white inside, and each has a pair of pierced scroll handles at the shoulder, gilded and touched with iron-red in the openings. The taller vase stands at the center with the pair to either side, exactly as sets like this were arranged on English mantelpieces two hundred years ago.
The deep blue and gold read as instant richness on a mantel, a console or a bookcase shelf, and the small scale makes the set easy to live with: it holds its own against dark paneling and lacquer, and lifts a pale or neutral scheme. Fill the central vase with a few stems or leave the three empty as a sculptural group. The trio also works split up, the pair on a chest of drawers or bedside tables and the center vase on a desk.

Dimensions:
Height (central vase): 7 inches (17.8 cm)
Height (flanking pair): 5 3/4 inches (14.6 cm)
Width (central vase): 3 1/2 inches (8.9 cm)
Depth (central vase): 2 inches (5.1 cm)

Marks:
Unmarked. Small decorative pieces of this period frequently left the factory without a mark.

Provenance:
Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge

Condition:
Good. Wear consistent with age and use.

References:
Reginald Haggar and Elizabeth Adams, Mason Porcelain & Ironstone 1796–1853 (London: Faber and Faber, 1977), illustrations 105 and 106, for similar ground and decoration.
Geoffrey A. Godden, Godden's Guide to Mason's China and the Ironstone Wares (Woodbridge: Antique Collectors' Club, 1980).
Geoffrey A. Godden, An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of British Pottery and Porcelain (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1966).

Historical Context:
Charles James Mason of Lane Delph, Fenton, in the Staffordshire Potteries, patented his Ironstone China on 31 July 1813: a dense, hard-fired stoneware body, cheaper than porcelain and far stronger than ordinary earthenware, which the firm decorated in bold imitation of Chinese and Japanese export porcelain for a rapidly growing middle-class market. Mazarine blue, a name the eighteenth-century porcelain factories had used for a deep cobalt ground, was among the richest of Mason's effects, and hexagonal vases such as these follow Chinese porcelain forms of the previous century. Garnitures, sets of three or five matching vases for the mantelpiece or cabinet, had been a fixture of the English interior since the height of the China trade, and Mason's supplied them in quantity through the 1820s and 1830s. See less