Indoor gardening in the eighteenth century - paintings of flower pots

Magazine Antiques, Jan, 1999 by Patricia F. Ferguson

Early in their partnership Josiah Wedgwood I (1730-1795) and Thomas Bentley (1730 -1780) anticipated the flourishing market for ornamental flowerpots appropriate to garden, greenhouse, or drawing room. In 1769 Queen Charlotte (1744-1818), a dedicated botanist, ordered garden pots from Wedgwood.(13)

While garden writers criticized glazed pots, which were believed to inhibit the access of plant roots to oxygen, the attractive ones were popular. Among them was Wedgwoods "Devonshire," named for Georgiana Cavendish (1757-1806), duchess of Devonshire, who was renowned for her good taste and sense of fashion. The model, resembling a common wooden garden tub, continued to be produced with variations into the early nineteenth century (see P1. III). Because glazed pots withstood sudden frost, they were arranged in precise rows along walls and walkways and were frequently used inside the house as well.

In a portrait of the children of Francis Hurt Sitwell (in a private collection) painted by John Singleton Copley in 1786, a potted geranium is shown on a gilded pier table. The pot is similar to a Wedgwood model (see Pl. IX), its engine-turned details resembling ivory inlay on treen, but variations on the design were also made by Wedgwood's competitors. In the 1770s more than fifty new varieties of what were known as the African geranium (Pelargonium) were introduced to Europe from the Cape of Good Hope. Copley depicted a pelargonium on the windowsill of the well-appointed room shown in Plate II. Clearly Copley selected this species to convey the privileged social status of the sitter, which is reinforced by the handsomely striped flowerpot, perhaps also by Wedgwood.

What was known as a myrtle pan, a sort of ceramic window box designed for a windowsill, was made by Wedgwood for several decades.(14) Five myrtle pans in black-and-white bisque appear in the 1781 catalogue of the sale of Wedgwood and Bentley stock by Christie and Ansell in London.(15) However, beginning the next year, Wedgwood records list the shape as a "Mignonette pan with stand," available with an optional flat cover pierced for cut flowers.(16)

Myrtle (Myrtus communis) is a fragrant evergreen shrub with white or pinkish flowers grown in England from the sixteenth century (Pl. XI). In the 1770s myrtle was the fashionable window-box plant with more than nineteen recorded varieties. In Mecklenburg County, Virginia, Jean (1748-1826), Lady Skipwith, grew Myrtus communis as a houseplant between 1785 and 1805.(17)

Empress Josephine (1763-1814) is generally credited with popularizing the pot plant mignonette (Reseda odorata), growing it from seed sent from Egypt by Napoleon in 1798. However, an English work published in 1754 noted that the "Mignonette d'Egypte," which flowered from June to November, had recently been introduced into English gardens (Pl. X):

The Flowers of this Plant have a Strong Scent like Fresh Raspberries which will spread over a Room in which two or three Plants are plac'd; and for this they are greatly esteemed.(18)