Aesthetics Movement vase exemplifies “art for art’s sake”

By Staff | on August 31, 2023

I see a lot of the ridiculous when I go thrifting.

You see things that are so badly designed that you wonder how someone conceived of the item to begin with.

Then you see something sublime, something so fantastical that it makes you pause.

That was the case with a piece of Moore Bros. porcelain, made in the 1880s or 1890s in the style of the Aesthetics Movement.

Yes, the Aesthetics Movement.

Furniture, art and design styles go through phases.

I recently highlighted a Roseville Pottery jardiniere and a copper lamp by Roycroft that bear the marks of the Arts & Crafts Movement.

But the Aesthetics Movement happened about 30 years before that.

That movement, which began in the 1860s, placed form over function — it’s exemplified by the term “art for art’s sake.”

Objects made in this style generally do not harken back to traditional European artistic forms — here, you’ll see a Far Eastern influence, courtesy of the opening of markets in Japan, with ebonized, or blackened furniture, and the prominent use of images from nature — flowers and birds, among other elements.

A detail of the orchid on a Moore Bros. porcelain vase. SCOTT SIMMONS / FLORIDA WEEKLY

Writer Oscar Wilde even lectured on the topic.

But the movement was only popular in the 1880s and the 1890s.

And somehow the aforementioned Moore Bros. vase survived 130 or 140 years to land on the shelves of the Nearly New Thrift Shop in West Palm Beach.

It’s organic in form, with the leaves, blossoms and pseudobulbs of orchids — imagine how exotic those were at a time when even sophisticated people seldom left their communities to visit places where orchids grew.

I turned it over and it was clearly marked, along with the registration number for the design that most British products of the day carried.

The piece is fanciful, bearing a shiny glaze to its base and a matte glaze on the flowers and leaves.

Four cones jut from the sides like roots that support the piece and serve as vases. Moore was known for making pieces such as this — some even had cherubs.

Scott Simmons

I had seen similar pieces in the past, but had not heard of Moore. According to the online reference thepotteries.org, Bernard and Samuel Moore’s company was in business from roughly 1872 to 1905 in St. Mary’s Works, Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, England.

By 1881, the brothers employed about 150 people. After the pottery closed in 1905, its molds were sold and Thomas C. Wild bought the St. Mary’s works, which later became home to Royal Albert China — there’s a name many of us will recognize.

That’s the history — now, back to the piece.

The vase, which stands about 6 inches high and is about 9 inches across at its widest point, was priced at $10 as-is. There are a couple of chips on the applied porcelain flowers and a couple of stress-related cracks in the body of the piece. I set it back down because it’s an unofficial rule that I’m not allowed to buy anything damaged because of the lack of space.

But most of these pieces are imperfect — the ornaments and trims are all too delicate to have survived the wear and tear of 130 years or so of dusting and washing.

So I picked it up and bought.

It seemed a natural, especially given that I’m trying to grow orchids after a hiatus of many decades.

And I’m unlikely to find another.

Now, to find a place for it! ¦

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