Large Eton China Ivory Cornucopia Vase, Gilt Acanthus and Floral Sprays, Rococo, c. 1940–1965

The Piece

A large cornucopia vase in ivory glazed ceramic, hand decorated in the rococo revival manner and stamped Hand Decorated Eton China to the base, the horn of plenty of the mid-century mantel at full mantel scale, tall enough to carry a real armful of flowers and to hold its own against a mirror or a pair of candlesticks. The horn rises from a scrolled acanthus foot on a shaped rectangular plinth, curls once at the base and opens upward into a tall fluted trumpet with a gilt-edged scalloped rim, the inside of the mouth bordered with a band of gilt lace. The body carries a scatter of small floral sprays, pink roses, blue forget-me-nots and yellow blossoms with green leaves, between a gilt laurel band at the neck and the gilt-tipped acanthus leaves that climb the horn from the foot; the plinth is edged with gilt scrolls and dots and dressed with a flower spray on each face. The glaze is a warm ivory with a soft sheen, the gold is a bright burnished gilt, and the whole has the confident, slightly theatrical charm of a piece made to be admired across a room.

The vase is in very good condition: no chips, cracks or repairs, the gilt bright with only light wear to the rim and the high points of the scrolls, the floral decoration intact and the glaze clean. The unglazed base shows a little kiln grit and the brown Eton China stamp. It holds water and will take a loose bouquet, a spray of dried grasses or a single branch of blossom.

History & Provenance

The cornucopia is the oldest emblem of plenty in Western art, the horn of the goat Amalthea that suckled the infant Zeus, overflowing with fruit and grain on Roman coins and Renaissance ceilings, and in the eighteenth century the porcelain factories of Meissen, Chelsea and Derby turned it into a vase, a horn on a scrolled rococo foot to be filled with flowers on a mantel or a sideboard. The shape never went out of fashion. It was revived in the Victorian parlor, in Belleek and in the ironstone of Staffordshire, and in America in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s the ceramic giftware and lamp-base trade made it again in ivory glaze with gilt acanthus and floral decals, the rococo revival look that furnished the French Provincial and Hollywood Regency rooms of the postwar house and was sold through department stores, florists and gift shops, often as a pair for the mantel.

Eton China is a trade mark of that giftware industry rather than a recorded factory; it appears on ivory-glazed vases, ewers and cornucopias of this type, hand decorated over decals with gilt and sometimes signed by the decorator, and no reference work ties it to a named pottery. The vase is offered as marked Eton China, maker unrecorded, most likely American decorating-firm production of the mid-twentieth century. The dating rests on the materials and the construction rather than style alone: the slip-cast ivory body with unglazed foot, the decal and hand-gilt decoration and the brown Hand Decorated stamp without a country of origin are consistent with manufacture between about 1940 and 1965.

Product Details

Why It Belongs in Your Home

A cornucopia vase is the piece that gives a mantel, a sideboard or a console its upward line, and this one, at the large size, does it in ivory and gold with just enough flowers to be romantic and not enough to be sweet. Fill it with peonies in May, dried wheat and grasses in October or a few stems of eucalyptus all year, or leave it empty and let the shape do the work. It keeps company with gilt mirrors, painted French furniture, marble, crystal and the soft colors of a cottage or Grandmillennial room, and it holds its own on a dark wood dresser in a traditional house. It is a natural gift for a hostess, a bride or a collector of the rococo revival, and for a shop or designer client it is the ivory and gilt accent that finishes a mantel vignette and sells on the shape.