Vase
Wedgwood
Category
Ceramics
Date
1871
Materials
Black basalt
Measurements
325 mm (Height)
Place of origin
Etruria
Order this imageCollection
Hill Top, Cumbria
NT 641467
Summary
Vase and cover, urn-shaped, black basalt, Josiah Wedgwood & Sons, Staffordshire, November 1871; the cover with an acorn finial and oak leaves, acanthus leaves around the neck, the body with Greek key pattern border and drapery swags below, two upright handles and pedestal base.
Full description
This vase, made by Wedgwood, is part of the collection at Hill Top. Beatrix Potter purchased this farmhouse in the Lake District village of Near Sawrey in 1905, using the profits from her books. After her marriage to William Heelis in 1913, Beatrix relocated permanently to Sawrey. The couple made nearby Castle Cottage their home, but Beatrix spent as much time as she could at Hill Top. As well as a space for work and creativity – and the location for many of her famous tales – it became an intensely personal sanctuary for Beatrix. Beatrix knew exactly how she would decorate Hill Top and arranged its interiors carefully and deliberately. She wrote: ‘I would have old furniture…it is not as expensive as modern furniture, and incomparably handsomer…’ Once she had renovated the farmhouse, she filled it with examples of local furniture and treasured heirlooms, like her grandmother’s warming pan and a set of plates decorated with designs by her father. The vase is captured in a still life pencil sketch by Beatrix, dated to December 1879, in the collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum (LC 1/B/1). This was probably made at her family home at Bolton Gardens in South Kensington, London. Beatrix mentions the vase in her journal, on 8 February 1884, writing that ‘[t]he black Wedgwood which is marked and without a crack was picked up in a little shop in town for sixteen shillings.’ The drawing perhaps marks the start of Beatrix’s lifelong passion for pottery – and particularly for Wedgwood. In addition to decorating and drawing ceramics, Beatrix experimented directly with clay. In 1884 she found some white clay on holiday and brought it home to make cameos and plaques in the style of Wedgwood, adding a blue colour in imitation of jasperware. A small box of damaged pieces at Hill Top made from partly blue-stained, unfired clay includes a couple with Beatrix’s monogram on the reverse (NT641537). Beatrix described at the time an ‘irresistible desire to copy any beautiful object which strikes the eye. Why cannot one be content to look at it? I cannot rest, I must draw…’ A few months later Beatrix recounts in her diary going to an exhibition at Devonshire House in Belgrave Square and is quite clear about what she liked and didn’t, describing ‘a good deal of priceless and hideous Sèvres, Chelsea and Dresden, and about a dozen most lovely and perfect pieces of Wedgwood. I think I never saw more delicate and transparent Wedgwood than some of the cameos.’ This passion for pottery stayed with Beatrix throughout her life – she would even come to own a prize-winning Herdwick sheep named Saddleback Wedgewood [sic]. The vase does not appear in an inventory of Bolton Gardens taken in 1914, which means that Beatrix might have already taken it to Hill Top. It is listed in the 1946 inventory of Hill Top, made after Beatrix’s death and following its preparation for the visiting public: ‘Black vase with lid, classical decoration; mark impressed Wedgewood [sic]’ (item 238). It was displayed in the Treasure Room, which included a number of items inherited from her mother and grandmother. This special room also contained her doll’s house, complete with furniture bought for her by her husband, Norman Warne, pieces of which feature in The Tale of Two Bad Mice. The vase is made from a type of black, matt ceramic that Josiah Wedgwood described as ‘black basaltes’, or ‘black porcelaine’. It was developed at his manufactory in Stoke-on-Trent, during the late 1760s. Today it is generally referred to as black basalt. It is a type of fine stoneware, which is an incredibly hard, durable ceramic body, fired at high temperatures. The rich black colour is achieved by tinting the clay with manganese. Black basalt was used for an incredibly large range of ornamental and practical wares – from library busts and small cameos, to teawares and candlesticks. By 1772, Wedgwood had over 100 different vase shapes in production, including in black basalt. He even described himself as ‘Vase maker General to the universe.’ The vases became incredibly fashionable and were often sold in sets to be placed on a mantelpiece. Beatrix Potter’s vase was made in 1871, about a century after Wedgwood first developed the basalt body. Like the earlier vases, it takes its inspiration from the Classical world – and particularly from architectural ornament. This is evident in the urn-like form of the object, as well the decorative motifs such as the swags of draped cloth, the stepped ‘key’ pattern border at the top of the body, and the acanthus leaves around the neck. Wedgwood’s vase designs were largely copied or adapted from illustrations, including the collections of Classical vases published by the antiquarian, Sir William Hamilton. He also made sketches of vases owned by friends and patrons. The underside of the vase is impressed with the factory mark and the letters ‘NTZ’, which are the date marks for November 1871. They are most often seen on earthenware and occasionally on other bodies.
Marks and inscriptions
Underside of base: WEDGWOOD (impressed) NTZ (impressed, date letters for November 1871)
Makers and roles
Wedgwood, manufacturer
References
Telford 1946: Mrs Telford, Catalogue of the Contents of Hill Top, Sawrey, typed manuscript, 1946, item 238 Reilly 1995: Robin Reilly, Wedgwood: The New Illustrated Dictionary (Woodbridge: Antique Collectors Club, 1995), pp. 65-69; 504. Conroy 2023: Rachel Conroy, ‘A love of ‘old china, especially earthenware’: ceramics at Beatrix Potter’s Hill Top and in her ‘little books’, Transactions of the English Ceramic Circle (Volume 34, 2023), 95-112