Pair of Lidded Vases

Potters at the Meissen porcelain manufactory imitated the shape and decoration of Chinese porcelain when they made these vases. The form copies a traditional Chinese design known today as a ginger jar, with flat shoulders and a wide, curving base. The bold flower decorations of rocks, birds, and blossoms, known at Meissen as Indianische Blumen (East Indies flowers), were a European interpretation of more delicate Chinese and Japanese ornament. The term Indianische Blumen derives from the name of the largest European importer of Asian ceramics in the 1700s, the Dutch East India Company.