The classical-shaped vase stands out as the Tucker factory’s most sophisticated product. Based on French prototypes, these vases came in two standard sizes. The larger, 14 inches high, was made with caryatid handles and cost $2.00 undecorated, while the smaller, about 11 inches high, had more simple volute handles, as shown here, and cost $1.50 undecorated. Thomas Tucker’s price list for painting notes something called “Mantles richly [raised?],” and his list for burnishing also lists “Mantles Bands 4 [cents] / do full gilt 9 [cents]/ do Less 6 [cents].” Whether the term “Mantle” is a reference to this type of vase or the more common beaker-shaped vases that were used as mantle garnitures is not clear. The gilt palmetto-like ornament at the base of the body of the Bayou Bend vases is a motif that appears on a beaker-shaped vase that graces the title page of the polychrome pattern book. These vases are richly ornamented with gilding and dense polychrome inverse floral swags. A note of extra sophistication in the French taste is seen in the use of peach for the banding at the base of the body and in the spandrels at the shoulders. The bold gilt laurel wreath at the neck also echoes French ornament.  The feet, which shrank in the firing, curl up at the corners.

Related Examples: Less than 20 exist today. Eleven-inch examples (Tucker 1957, nos. 296 and 298, part of a garniture with a 14-inch example [no. 297]; nos. 491–92,493–94); a pair at the White House with portraits of Lafayette and Jackson (Frelinghuysen 1989, p. 19, fig 13); 14-inch examples with caryatids (Tucker 1957, nos. 130, 267, 496–97, 498–99); two pairs of oversize vases with ormolu handles at PMA (Frelinghuysen 1989, nos. 14, 15); another oversize pair with gilt bronze handles sold at auction April 17, 1997 (Maine Antique Digest [June 1997], p. 8-E).

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.