Commencing in the mid-18th century and continuing for over a century, almost every British ceramic manufacturer produced vessels designed to be part of a garniture - a matched set of vases, jars and/ or beakers for display on a chimney-piece, above cabinets and over doorways. Typically, these were uneven in number, with three, five or even eleven pieces; such shapes, however, were also sold in pairs and as singletons (1). This Western fashion began in the early 17th century, using assorted Chinese porcelain assembled to form groups, including jars, beakers, bottles, bowls and sometimes figures, unified typically by their underglaze blue painting; significantly, when supplies were plentiful they were often acquired when new in pairs, suggesting they were intended to be displayed symmetrically. When imports of Chinese porcelain officially ceased between 1657 and the early 1680s, Western retailers and consumers commissioned unique sets with matching decoration from potters in the Netherlands, in Delft, and in France, at Nevers, as well as from Japan, where five-piece sets were the standard for exports; in England, the elite ordered sets in silver for cabinets from the leading silversmiths.2 The fashion thus continued despite the absence of new supplies of Chinese porcelain.
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