Potpourri Vase with Cover (c. 1860–80): Art, History and Details

Potpourri Vase with Cover (c. 1860–80) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This vase was likely made by the celebrated Parisian ceramics firm of Edmé Samson (1810-91). To cater to the resurgence in taste for 18th-century designs, the Samson firm specialized in making reproductions of rare 18th-century European porcelains, especially those from firms that had already copied Chinese porcelains. In this case, this vase's design is taken from models produced by the St. Cloud factory in the 1750s after earlier Qing dynasty Chinese ceramics. However, the telltale sign that this vase is made by Samson and not St. Cloud is that the original would have been made from a soft-paste porcelain (fired at a lower temperature), while this example is made of hard-paste porcelain (fired at the highest temperature).

Object facts

• Title: Potpourri Vase with Cover
• Date: c. 1860–80
• Culture: France
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: blanc-de-chine porcelain; gilt bronze mount
• Dimensions: Overall: 26.5 x 21.2 cm (10 7/16 x 8 3/8 in.)
• Collection: Decorative Arts
• Department: Decorative Art and Design
• Accession number: 2020.200.2

A detail from the museum

Potpourri vases always have holes in the top to let the scent of dried spices and flowers contained within freshen the air around them.

Collection credit

Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Collection Gift

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.