Garnitures in the 18th century
Garnitures are symmetrical arrangements of vessels, usually a combination of vases and urns, often on the mantelpiece or on top of a cabinet. This modern term comes from a French word meaning an embellishment. (I haven’t found a term for these sets in English; just generic references to urns and vases. The Dutch term is kaststel, deriving from the word kast, the sort of high cupboard on which these might be displayed in a home.)
This sort of display sometimes incorporated ornaments such as candlesticks, clocks, busts, obelisks, and Chinese figurines. Many of the earlier 17th century Dutch garnitures were assembled from Chinese imported ceramics, but in the 18th century, different styles of vases and urns for this sort of display were produced in Europe that coordinated with contemporary tastes and styles for interior decorating, including delftware, rococo floral Sèvres porcelain, neoclassical designs in jasperware or alabaster, as well as chinoiserie-inspired designs.
An exhaustive list of extant garnitures would be far too lengthy. I’ve included a few here to get started, but I’m more interested in looking at images showing how they were displayed in 18th century interiors. (Working-class interiors are more likely to display an assortment of household objects in a less orderly display.)
© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.
The ornaments at the top of John Morris’s c. 1760 trade card include the sort of alternating pattern of trumpet-shaped vases and baluster-shaped covered urns that are typical in surviving 18th century garniture sets.
The other ornaments resemble items that could have been displayed on a tastefully decorated chimney-piece in the 18th century — small floral displays or candelabras, sculptures of a bird and a lion (which reminds me of the "Two Lyons after the Antique Lyon’s in Italy” that George Washington received in 1760), and a pair of Chinese figures not unlike the joss in the center of the garniture in the Bull family portraits below.
Garnitures displayed in 18th century artwork and illustrations
Chimney-piece decorated with numerous vases and vessels, in Nouvelles cheminée faittes en plusieurs endroits de la Hollande et autres Provinces, c. 1686-1703
Chimney-piece with Chinese vases of various shapes and sizes, in Nouveaux lieure de cheminées à la Hollandoise, c. 1690-1712
Design for chimney-piece, with clock and Chinese vases on the mantel shelf, in Nouvelle cheminées à Panneaux de glace à la manière de France, c. 1690-1712
Mr. and Mrs. Atherton by Arthur Devis, c. 1743
Mr. and Mrs. Richard Bull by Arthur Devis, 1747
Mr. and Mrs. Richard Bull and family by Arthur Devis
Lady Juliana Penn by Arthur Devis, 1752
John Orde, his wife Anne, his eldest son William, and an unnamed servant by Arthur Devis, c. 1754-1756
Lucy Watson, Mrs Thornton by Arthur Devis, 1755
Family group by a follower of Arthur Devis, 1756
Interior with figures at an open hearth, 1765
Sr Archie & Sr Callighan, in Love a la Mode, c. 1770-1800
Four o’Clock in Town, 1790
John Holt, 1800
The Second Drawing Room, Buckingham House by James Stephanoff, 1818
Domestic interior by Michiel Versteeg
Extant garnitures from the 18th century
(As mentioned above — there are a lot of 18th century garnitures in museum collections and private collections. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but they provide details to consider in terms of shapes, materials, and decorations.)
Seattle Art Museum 54.81.1 / 54.81.2 / 54.81.3 / 54.81.4 / 54.81.5, a garniture of five Delftware vases made by the Metal Pot Factory c. 1710; “the concept for these impressive vases was inspired by Chinese Ming altar vases collected by the Dutch. They are an exotic blend of forms and decoration-their shapes come from Chinese vases and jars, but the overall dense textural patterns evoke another Asian decorative style and rare commodity: the famous shawls of Kashmir”
Walters 49.2111 / 49.2112 / 49.2113 / 49.2241 / 49.275, a mid-18th century garniture of trumpet-shaped vases and lidded baluster-shaped vases made of Chinese porcelain with famille rose enamels, mid-18th century
British Museum Franks 820 / 820.1 / 820.2 / 820.3 / 820.4, a set of oviform lidded jars and trumpet vases with English heraldry in the famille rose palette, made in Jingdezhen c. 1750-1770
Met 64.142.32–.34, three soft-paste porcelain vases with polychrome enamel decorations, made in Worcester c. 1751-1753
Huntington 27.27 / 27.28 / 27.29, pear-shaped lidded vases produced at the Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory c. 1762 with pastoral scenes; “The neck and lid are pierced to allow the scent of potpourri to escape from the vase.”
MFAH B.59.115.1-.5, five-piece delftware garniture set with two vases and three lidded urns, c. 1765-1775
Mount Vernon W-972/A / W-972/B / W-2260, made by the Worcester Porcelain Manufactory c. 1768-1770; “In 1785, [English merchant Samuel Vaughan] shipped a costly Italian marble mantelpiece from his own country estate in England to be installed in Mount Vernon's New Room. One year later, these striking, baluster-shaped garniture vases arrived. Their opulent dark blue grounds - a color perfected at Worcester in the late 1760s - marvelously frame the exotic landscapes with animals contained in the reserves.” Washington’s letter to Vaughan thanks him for his generosity: “The picture of a battle in Germany, & the Jarrs came very safe. The first is fine: the latter is also fine and exceedingly handsome—they shall occupy the place you have named for them.“ Martha Washington’s will bequeathed “the fine old china jars which usually stand on the chimney piece in the new room” to her grandson George Washington Parke Custis.
Versailles V2012.22.1-3, 58.75.72, 58.75.73, a set of Sèvres porcelain vases, 1772
Mount Vernon W-4349, part of a set of five Chinese porcelain vases c. 1775-1800; “All five vases (three baluster-shaped and two trumpet-shaped) feature a popular river landscape design known as Two Birds … It is not known when the Washingtons acquired this garniture, nor can it be proven if it is the ‘5 China Jarrs’ in the ‘Front [West] Parlor’ or the ‘5 blue & White Jars’ in the ‘Sweet Meat Closset’ listed in Mrs. Washington's inventory.”
Mount Vernon M-4294 / M-4295 / M-4296, two trumpet-shaped vases and a baluster-shaped lidded vase in Chinese porcelain, c. 1775-1814
Huntington 27.34 / 27.35 / 27.36, jewelled enamel lidded vases produced at the Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory in 1781 with landscapes and scenes adapted from paintings, the set thought to have been owned by Queen Marie-Antoinette
Getty 84.DE.718 / Walters 48.566 & 48.567, 1781; “Beginning in 1778, the Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory produced garnitures of five vases to a design called the vases des âges (vases of the ages). These ornamental vases were made in three sizes: a large central vase with handles in the shape of bearded male heads, a pair of smaller vases with heads of young women, and a pair of still smaller vases with heads of boys. In 1781 Louis XVI bought one of these garnitures for his library at the palace of Versailles. The scenes painted on the fronts of these vases show episodes from The Adventures of Telemachus, one of the king's favorite books … These vases are among the largest pieces of jeweled porcelain made at Sèvres. Jeweling was an elaborate form of decoration in which the ground color was covered with stamped gold foils. Small drops of colored enamel were then applied to the foils, imitating jewels, pearls, and moss agates. This type of ornament was extremely fragile and was therefore used only on objects created for display rather than for use.”
Mount Vernon W-2101/A-B, a baluster-shaped lidded vase with a castle in a landscape in Chinese porcelain, probably part of a three-piece or five-piece garniture, made c. 1790-1800