Vase

Illustrative of the exoticism fashionable with late nineteenth-century Americans, this bulbous-bodied, long-necked vase, with its pierced loop handles and lip, derives from a Near Eastern ceramic form. The vase's raised gold decoration however, a bird perched among blossoming sweet briar rose branches, is inspired by the work of the Royal Worcester factory in England. Royal Worcester porcelain was popular in America as well. Underglaze blue leaves painted on the mottled blue-green ground create an illusion of depth on the surface of this unusual vase. A china decorator at the Faience Manufacturing Company (1881–1892) achieved a similar effect on another vase, see 1984.424.

Established in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York in 1880, the Faience Manufacturing Company produced ornamental ceramic wares, such as vases, umbrella stands and jardinieres. In 1884, china decorator Edward Lycett (1833–1910) joined the firm as artistic director. Trained in the Staffordshire pottery industry, Lycett immigrated to the United States in 1861 and established a china painting business in lower Manhattan. Renowned for his artistic skill, Lycett enjoyed a successful career, and instructed numerous amateurs in china painting. With the assistance of a team of twenty-five talented china decorators, Lycett created new designs for the firm that display a synthesis of Near and Far Eastern decoration enriched with lavish raised gold paste decoration. Pieces produced by European firms such as Worcester, Minton, Sevres and Royal Dresden frequently served as sources of inspiration for him. For an example of the firm's early work, see L.1997.45.2. For other examples of the firm's later work, see: 1981.432.4, 1984.424, 1986.57, and 1991.370.15, 2002.443, 2004.95. For an example of Lycett's china painting, see L.1991.74.1.