Indoor gardening in the eighteenth century - paintings of flower pots

Magazine Antiques, Jan, 1999 by Patricia F. Ferguson

In the eighteenth century gardening became the pleasurable amusement of not only the nobility and gentry, who raised exotic plants in hothouses and gardens, but of city dwellers, who dressed their narrow window ledges with potted plants. Essential to the enjoyment of this pursuit was the clay flowerpot, a form virtually unchanged in four millennia. However. during the eighteenth century the humble flowerpot for the garden became a fashionable porcelain ornament for the drawing room.

Whereas fashions in containers were dominated by architects and designers, fashions in exotic plants were the province of nurserymen and botanists, who promoted curious foreign species or novel hybrids of familiar varieties. By the end of the century exotics in well-designed containers had earned an important place in an architectural aesthetic designed to stimulate the senses and touch the soul.

Appropriate pots were discussed by George London (d. 1713) and Henry Wise (1653-1758), the owners of the Brompton Park nursery in London, when they translated two French garden manuals under the title The Retir'd Gard'ner (London, 1706):

Pots must be either of plain Earth or DutchWare. The Former may serve for the Flowers last mention'd [Pinks, Auriculas, Tuberoses, and the like], whereas the latter, being much larger, may have Jessamins, Gilly-Flowers, and other Plants of like bigness Planted in them, and serve for Ornament in Parterres when they are plac'd regularly and according to Art!

With the exception of pots of tuberoses (Polianthes tuberosa), listed as suitable for the windowsill, the types of containers described above were intended for the garden or orangery. An accompanying illustration (Pl. V) shows a "Dutch-Ware" pot that resembles the tin-glazed earthenware urns made throughout Europe (see Pl. VI). With a shape based on metalware forms. these pots were often decorated to imitate Chinese porcelain.

In The City Gardener (London, 1722) Thomas Fairchild (1667-1729), another nurseryman, admonished the London gentry to furnish their rooms with plants evoking country gardens:

The Chimneys which are generally dress'd in Summer with fading Bough Pots, might be as well adorned at once with living Plants, as I have observed her Grace's the late excellent Dutchess of Beaufort.

If one was to have a Pyramid of Shelves to be covered with Pots of blossoming Orange-Trees, with fruit upon them intermixt with Mirtles, Aloes, &c. For Variety-sake, it would be extremely beautiful for the Summer; and the Pots, to add the greater Beauty might be of Delph Ware, or well painted, to Stand in Dishes, which are now in Use; so that when we water the Plants, the water will not run upon the Floor.(2)

Fairchild promoted the fashion, already popular with the aristocracy, of decorating the hearth in summer with flowers.(3) His description of flowerpots with saucers is supported by archaeological evidence.(4)

In his New Principles of Gardening (London, 1728) the architect and garden designer Batty Langley (1696-1751) treated the adornment of mantelpieces with seasonal flowers. He suggested that cheap clay pots containing forced bulbs and plants be placed inside ornamental flowerpots "of Dutch ware, China, &c." and the contents rotated monthly.(5) For January he proposed planting pots with clusters of snowdrops surrounded by a ring of crocuses, and for late summer he recommended the red-flowered eglantine rose (Rosa Eglanteria) as "very proper to be raised in Pots, to adorn the Ladies Chimneys and perfume the Air in their Chambers with its pleasant and most delightful Odour."(6)

Few ornamental flowerpots, and even fewer with saucers, have survived from the first half of the eighteenth century.(7) Before 1750 the common clay pot was pierced with several drainage holes on the sides just above the base, as well as holes in the base itself. Surviving pots from mid-century have either a large central hole surrounded by several smaller ones or up to five small holes in the base (see Pls. IV, IVa, IVb).(8) By the end of the century, perhaps as a production economy, a single large drainage hole became standard.

In France two elegant flowerpots for the mantelpiece were introduced by the Sevres porcelain factory in 1754: the vase hollandois(9) and the Vaze a l'Angloise rond, which was renamed the following year vase a dauphin (Pl. VII).(10) These pots were doubtless full year-round. In the spring there would be hyacinths, jonquils, or tulips from the Netherlands and certainly Flakes or Bizarres, the recent multi-striped hybrids of clove-scented carnations, if fashions among the decorators of porcelain flowers at the Vincennes porcelain factory are any guide. These would have been followed by roses. Finding scented shrubs and evergreens to fill empty flowerpots on the mantel in winter, however, presented a dilemma. A mid-century solution was the heliotrope (Heliotropium peruvianum), an aromatic plant so fashionable it was available through marchands-merciers.(11) The plant was recommended more for its vanilla scent than its lavender-colored flower. It had only been discovered in 1744 by the botanist Joseph de Jussieu (1704-1779), who sent seeds from Peru to the royal gardens in Paris. As early as 1757 Philip Miller illustrated the heliotrope (P1. VIII). In 1786 Thomas Jefferson listed heliotrope among the plants he sent from Paris to his relative Francis Eppes (1747-1826) in Chesterfield County, Virginia. Jefferson called it "a delicious flower, but I suspect it must be planted in boxes & kept in the house in winter, the smell rewards the care."(12)