From Wedgwood hedgehogs to towering jardinieres, collectable plant pots abound, but ceramic statues and furniture for outside use are much harder to find and often much newer than they look.

Pots and other containers for growing and displaying plants existed as early as Song (Sung) dynasty China (AD 960‑1279). In Europe, potters were making such containers from at least the 17th century, spurred by the import of exotic plants and the breeding of new varieties which the wealthy displayed in their homes. It was a field that eventually included majolica statues and seats and other objects that today attract both collector and gardener — though some are too valuable to be used for their original purpose.

Pots for Display

Vases made especially for displaying tulips, sometimes individually, were first made in 17th-century Holland. Rare blue and white Delft tulip pyramids with a separate nozzle for every bloom change hands at auction today for up to £30,000.

Flower bricks — literally brick-shaped delftware flower holders dating from the 1750s — could also have been used for small bulbs. They were the forerunners of the semicircular ‘bough pots‘ produced by most English and French porcelain factories in the late 18th and early loth centuries. These had a loose metal liner and separate pierced cover. In some cases the holes in the cover are small, for flower stems, but in others they are large so that bulbs could sit on top. Today, bough pots fetch anything from £300 to £3000.

Antique Collection

Jardinieres

Decorative plant pots for use inside the home or conservatory are known as jardinieres, from the French word jardin (garden). The term applies to a wide range of containers, from small bucket-shaped pots on saucer-like stands to massive bowls on tall pedestals. (Strictly speaking, jardinieres have drainage holes; those without holes, to hold potted plants, are called cache-pots — ‘pot-hiders’.)

Jardinieres of the 18th century held artificial trees blossoming with lifelike porcelain or paper flowers, but these are rarely found at auction today for less than £5000. The most costly — Sevres square tubs of fine porcelain dating from the 1750s and 6os — are hardly ever seen today, but late 19th-century copies by Minton fetch £800-£1000.

It was in the Victorian era that jardinieres proliferated. Large, heavily glazed examples were made in most countries, but especially in Britain, where many middle-class families had aspidistras and ferns standing in the drawing room or conservatory. Many colourful Minton majolica pieces were made from about 1850. Other makers followed suit, particularly in Germany and France, where Clement Massier and Theodore Deck combined majolica glazes with painted decoration. Today, Victorian jardinieres range in price from £300 up to £10,000 for the most eccentric designs by the best-known makers.

Far more restrained are the ‘drawing room flowerpots’ patented by Grainger’s porcelain factory of Worcester in 1840. The decorated outer cache-pot was sold with several porous clay liners in which flowers were raised in the greenhouse to provide a continuous display.

Garden Seats and Ornaments

Stools, statues and life-size modelled animals, as well as jardinières, can all be found in colourful majolica. A Minton novelty seat may fetch up to £4000, a large animal up to £30,000. Barrel-shaped seats were also made in 19th-century blue and white earthenware, copying Chinese porcelain originals, but they could not withstand harsh weather. Survivors are mostly those kept indoors.

One ceramic material that has proved as weather-resistant as cast iron is salt-glazed stoneware, and it was used to make rustic furniture from the 1850s to the 1870s in Germany and particularly in Scotland. This simulated tree trunks and gnarled branches, often on a massive scale. Today, objects such as small planters, troughs, seats, benches — even tiered fountains — fetch anything from £100 up to £2000 for the largest items.

Ceramic sculptures and ornaments were produced as cheap alternatives to stone and bronze, but again most were not hard wearing and often look older than they really are. A terracotta statue, for example, may appear ancient but is very unlikely to be so — and if `Czechoslovakia’ is stamped on the back it could not have been made before 1918.

Far more durable are garden statues in Coade stone, a form of highly fired stoneware of the late 18th century that was marketed as artificial stone, or in the architectural stoneware of a century later. These latter were mainly made by Doulton, manufacturers of hard-wearing sanitary ware; they are sometimes finished with strongly coloured glazes that have retained their brilliance.

Just when the ceramics industry devised weatherproof materials, however, new forms of concrete were developed to cast figures, especially gnomes, much more cheaply. As a result, ceramic statues are surprisingly rare.

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