Description
Pearlware Pastille burner with fine modelling and strong coloured decoration executed in bright enamel colours.
An unusual model of a house in the form of a Pastille Burner from Staffordshire potteries in the early part of the 19th century circa 1820 period. The roof of the burner separates from the base which would hold the perfumed pastilles. The pastilles smoulder when lit (much like incense cones today )and incense from the pastille exits through the chimneys of the house. This model is exceptionally well modelled and coloured in bright enamels and has a vibrant decorative appeal.
This burner is quite rare and is unrecorded in any of the standard reference books on ceramics. This piece is the equivalant of today’s scented oil devices and room freshners it was the “Airwick” of the time..
Perhaps the pastille cones emitted a rather stronger essence to cope with some of the stronger aromas associated with city and town houses in the time when the sanitation systems were still rather basic and wanting. This Pastille Burner would have been an expensive piece in circa 1820 so would have graced a rather upmarket residence.
I can almost see the housemaid lifting the roof of the burner and lighting the cone prior to the arrival of important guests; how impressed they must have been.