Potpourri Vase (mid 1700s): Art, History and Details

Potpourri Vase (mid 1700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Saint Cloud Porcelain Factory (French).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

A vase like this was created to contain potpourri, a mixture of flowers, herbs, and spices emitting ambient fragrance. This specific function offered a particularly fertile ground for the development of French porcelain, as manufactories experimented with forms, surface ornamentations, and placement of perforations.

Object facts

• Title: Potpourri Vase
• Date: mid 1700s
• Creator attribution: Saint Cloud Porcelain Factory (French)
• Culture: France, Saint Cloud, 18th century
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: soft-paste porcelain
• Dimensions: Overall: 15 cm (5 7/8 in.)
• Collection: Decorative Arts
• Department: Decorative Art and Design
• Accession number: 1962.360.2.a

A detail from the museum

Prior to Saint-Cloud's development of soft-paste porcelain in the 1690s, rumors spread throughout Europe that the prized material was made by burying a variety of materials, including lobster shells, in the ground for 80 years.

Collection credit

The Norweb Collection

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.