Lenox Rose Blossom Ivory Porcelain Bud Vase, Relief Rose and Ribbon, 24K Gold, c. 1985–2005

The Piece

A Lenox ivory porcelain bud vase in the Rose Blossom pattern, a slender baluster that rises from a small spreading foot to a swelling shoulder and draws in to a narrow lipped mouth, with a single full-blown rose modeled in high relief on the front and a ribbon trailing from beneath it in two loose curls down the body. The rose is the whole decoration: a layered bloom with a tight center and curled outer petals, two serrated leaves behind it and the ribbon knotted below, all left in the same warm ivory as the body so that the modeling reads in shadow and highlight rather than color. The rim and the foot are banded in 24 karat gold, two thin bright lines that frame the ivory and catch the light. The glaze has the creamy, faintly translucent warmth that is the Lenox signature, and the vase has the weight and the ring of true porcelain.

The vase is in excellent condition: no chips, cracks, crazing or repairs, the relief crisp, the glaze bright, the gold at rim and foot unworn. It holds water and takes a single long stem, a rose by preference, or a few sprigs from the garden.

History & Provenance

Lenox was founded at Trenton, New Jersey, in 1889 by Walter Scott Lenox, who set out to make an American porcelain that could stand beside the European factories and succeeded so well that his ivory-bodied china was chosen for the White House by Woodrow Wilson in 1918, the first American service to be used there. The warm ivory body, a refinement of the Irish Belleek formula, became the signature of the firm, and from the 1920s Lenox carried a line of giftware beside the dinnerware: vases, bowls, dishes and figures in the same ivory, trimmed in 24 karat gold and modeled in low relief. The rose has been the Lenox giftware flower for most of a century, from the sculptured rose vases of the 1950s through the Rosebud Collection of the mid 1980s to Rose Blossom, the pattern of this vase, in which a single relief rose with a trailing ribbon decorates a family of bud vases, bowls and boxes sold through the jewelers and department stores that were the Lenox bridal registry's home ground. Rose Blossom was among the most popular of the late Lenox giftware patterns, the bud vase its best-known shape, and the pattern has since been retired.

The vase is attributed on its pattern and its Lenox backstamp. The dating rests on the mark and the construction rather than style alone: the ivory body, the 24 karat gold banding at rim and foot and the Rose Blossom relief are consistent with the pattern's production from the late 1980s through the early 2000s, and the piece is dated c. 1985–2005.

Product Details

Why It Belongs in Your Home

A bud vase is the smallest piece of furniture in a room and the one that gets used most. This one lives on a nightstand with a single rose, on a bathroom counter with a sprig of eucalyptus, on a desk with a stem of lavender, or on a dining table in a row of three with the candles. The ivory and gold sit with white linen and marble, with blue and white, with silver and with the dark wood of a traditional room, and the relief rose gives it a presence a plain bud vase lacks. It is the natural gift for a Lenox collector, a bride, a mother or anyone who keeps one flower by the bed. For a shop or designer client it is the marked, excellent, American porcelain accent that styles a tablescape and sells on the name.