Pair Blue-Ground Vases with Swan Handles with Views of High Street, Oxford, and Warwick Castle, Warwickshire, about 1820
Chamberlain’s, Worcester, England
Porcelain, painted and gilded, 9 5/16 in. high
Signed and inscribed (with red script, under the base of each): Chamberlains / Worcester; (in red script, under the base of the Warwick Castle vase): Warwick Castle; (under the base of the High Street, Oxford, vase): High Street Oxford
This handsome pair of vases is ornamented with views of Warwick Castle, and High Street, Oxford. Like other porcelain manufacturers in England and France during the early nineteenth century, one of the popular subjects of decoration was views of local, or popular, scenes. The pages of Geoffrey Goddens’ Chamberlain-Worcester Porcelain, 1788–1852 (Wigston, Leicester: Magna Books, 1992), illustrate pieces of Chamberlain Worcester porcelain with views of Magdalen College (p. 177 fig. 221), Buckingham Palace (p. 264 fig. 333), Bournemouth (p. 265 fig. 334), Malvern Abbey (p. 166 fig. 204), The Seat of the Duke of Montrose, Stirlingshire, and The Seat of Earl Cowper, Herts. (pl. XIX), as well as a number of views of Worcester and Cheltenham. Even foreign subjects were occasionally used, including Government House and Council Chambers at Madras, India (p. 278 fig. 358), and the U.S. Capitol at Washington (formerly collection of Hirschl & Adler Galleries; now, private collection; see photograph in Hirschl & Adler archives), and of City Hall, New York (see catalogue, sale 3923, Sotheby-Parke-Bernet, Inc., New York, November 18–20, 1976, no. 30 illus.).