Vase
Decorative Arts and Design
On View: Luce Visible Storage and Study Center, 5th Floor
Union Porcelain Works (UPW), the most famous and longest lived of the Brooklyn ceramic firms, was established by Thomas Carll Smith after he bought out his partners at the earlier William Boch & Brothers pottery. UPW produced a wide range of wares that appealed to a broad spectrum of consumers: art pottery, porcelain tableware sets, hotel and restaurant ceramics, Parian ware figures, and even elaborately decorated water filters.
In 1874 UPW hired Karl L. H. Mueller (American, b. Germany, 1820–1887) to design special wares for the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. He created highly original designs that featured unique North American iconography of native animals and scenes of national history that helped UPW distinguish itself from its European competitors.
MEDIUM
Porcelain
DATES
ca. 1884
DIMENSIONS
14 7/8 x 6 1/4 x 6 1/4 in. (37.8 x 15.9 x 15.9 cm)
(show scale)
MARKINGS
Printed on underside: partial mark in brown of "UNION / PORCELAIN / WORKS / GREENPOINT / N.Y."; and mark in green, "U.P.W." above head of an eagle
Incised into ground (beneath glaze) on underside: "U.P.W. / 1884"
SIGNATURE
no signature
INSCRIPTIONS
no inscriptions
ACCESSION NUMBER
68.87.44
CREDIT LINE
Gift of Franklin Chace
CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION
White, hard paste porcelain, embossed with polychrome and gilded decorations. Square-shaped body with slightly bulging contours supported on foot rim, tapers in then rises to form tall squared neck; grotesque lizards in matte gold applied to opposing corners of neck (one near top faces down, one near body faces up). Each side of body and neck covered with stylized jewel work of geometric and foliate patterns in gold, blues, and pinks.
CONDITION: Good.
CAPTION
Union Porcelain Works (1863–ca. 1922). Vase, ca. 1884. Porcelain, 14 7/8 x 6 1/4 x 6 1/4 in. (37.8 x 15.9 x 15.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Franklin Chace, 68.87.44. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 68.87.44_view2_PS9.jpg)
IMAGE
overall, 68.87.44_view2_PS9.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2013
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT
Creative Commons-BY
You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this three-dimensional work in accordance with a
Creative Commons license. Fair use, as understood under the United States Copyright Act, may also apply.
Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online
application form (charges apply).
For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the
United States Library of Congress,
Cornell University,
Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and
Copyright Watch.
For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our
blog posts on copyright.
If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact
copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
RECORD COMPLETENESS
Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and
we welcome any additional information you might have.
I'd like to learn more about this object.
This vase was produced in c. 1875 at the Union Porcelain Works of Brooklyn, which was the biggest porcelain manufacturer in the country during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. .The decorative pattern and sculptural lizards are an example of the ornate art pottery that was collected for display in the home.
