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Group shot (L-R): 1982.499 (View: Back), 1982.500 (View: Front)
Vase
Group shot (L-R): 1982.499 (View: Back), 1982.500 (View: Front)

Vase

about 1820
Object PlaceParis, France
Medium/TechniqueHard-paste porcelain
DimensionsHeight x width: 28 3/4 x 12 in. (73 x 30.5 cm)
Credit LineBequest of Miss Clara Endicott Sears
Accession number1982.500
On View
Not on view
ClassificationsCeramics
Collections
ProvenanceAbout 1820, purchased by David Sears (b. 1787 - d. 1871), Boston [see note]; by descent to his son, Knyvet Winthrop Sears (b. 1832 - d. 1891) and his wife Mary Peabody Sears (b. 1836 - d. 1929), Boston; to their daughter, Clara Endicott Sears (b. 1863 - d. 1960), Boston; 1960, bequest of Clara Endicott Sears to the MFA. (Accession Date: November 17, 1982)

NOTE: When Clara Endicott Sears bequeathed this pair of French vases (1982.499-1982.500) to the MFA, she stated that her grandfather David Sears had bought them "from the possessions of the Empress Josephine of France, the wife of Napoleon the First, at the breaking up of her Chateau Malmaison." It is, however, much more likely that these are the "two large Porcelain vases to place in the niches, the price limited to 500 francs each" that David Sears ordered from Paris on December 10, 1820, for his Beacon Street home. See Wendy A. Cooper, Classical Taste in America: 1800-1840 (New York: Abbeville Press, 1993), pp. 41-43.