Since early times, vase forms were made to display fresh, dried, or artificial flowers. Wall pockets, or wall-mounted flower containers, first were made from porcelain in China in the 1600s. In the 1700s and 1800s in England, wall pockets, like the ones offered here, were sometimes known as “cornucopias” or “flower horns.” Reaching the height of their popularity in the mid-1700s during the rococo period, these ornamental objects probably hung in dining rooms and parlors. Sold in pairs, wall pockets were often asymmetrical shapes with right- and left-handed examples. They were usually constructed of press-molded fronts or slip-cast fronts and then half joined to flat, slab backs, which were pierced twice to allow for a wire for hanging. England produced a wider arrange of wall pockets than any other country. They were manufactured in delftware, creamware, pearlware, green-glazed earthenware, soft-paste porcelain, and white salt-glazed stoneware. With the rise of neoclassicism in the 1770s, the popularity of the form began to fade.

Plate 18 of Robert Sayer’s The Ladies Amusement: Or, Whole Art of Japanning Made Easy (London, 1762) illustrates a twisted, flower-filled, cornucopia-shaped pocket. Some wall pockets found their way to the North American market. The same year of Sayer’s publication, the firm of Keeling and Morris announced in the sale of “A complete Assortment of the most fashionable kinds of Glass and Stone Ware,” including “Venis Flower Faces both green and white.” Despite the documented evidence of wall pockets in North America, few examples survive with American ownership. With one exception, a pair of lead-glazed wall pockets with metallic oxide colors, resides in the collection of the RISD Museum in Providence. The paper label on the back of one is inscribed “Joseph Crawford from the old Crawford house in S. Main St. A.A.I.” The initials are those of Ann Allen Ives (née Dorr, 1810–1844), who probably acquired them sometime in the mid-1800s. According to the label, they first belonged to her great uncle Joseph Crawford (1711–1776) and his wife, Susanna Bernon (1716–1802), who lived on South Main Street in Providence. The salt-glazed pair of wall pockets in the Bayou Bend Collection display the same molded vase of flowers pattern as the ones in the RISD collection (09.567).