flower brick
A flower brick is a type of vase, cuboid-shaped like a building brick, and designed to be seen with the long face towards the viewer. Traditional flower bricks are made of a ceramic material, usually delftware or other tin-glazed earthenware. The top surface has a large hole into which water is poured, and a number of smaller holes into which flower stems are inserted, so that the flowers are kept in position.
flower brick
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- Field
- flower vase
- Related practice
- delftware
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A flower brick is a type of vase, cuboid-shaped like a building brick, and designed to be seen with the long face towards the viewer. Traditional flower bricks are made of a ceramic material, usually delftware or other tin-glazed earthenware. The top surface has a large hole into which water is poured, and a number of smaller holes into which flower stems are inserted, so that the flowers are kept in position.
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wikidata · Q19960675 · wikipedia · Flower brick
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These vessels are a sub-type of the boughpot or tulipiere, which have more rounded shapes. Flower bricks are thought to have been the most common vessel for flowers besides vases in the 18th century. Some scholars suggest that flower bricks may have been used as quill holders and inkwells during the 17th century, although this is debated. There are few surviving pictorial representations of these objects in use during the 17th or 18th century.
• Illustration — English flower brick, c.1750-1760, by unknown maker. Tin-glazed earthenware (delftware), 3 1/2 × 2 3/8 × 5 1/2 in. (8.9 × 6 × 14 cm). Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. • Illustration — Flower brick (c. 1750), London. Tin-glazed earthenware, 14.6 × 9.2 × 7.3 cm (5 3/4 × 3 5/8 × 2 7/8 in.). Art Institute of Chicago. • Illustration — Flower brick, Liverpool, England. Tin-glazed earthenware, made in Liverpool around 1760. Walker Art Gallery.
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These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.BBC One - Antiques Roadshow, Series 36, Sainsbury Centre Norwich 1, English Delftware flower bricks. BBC Online. 12 January 2014.
- 2.Victoria and Albert Museum. Flower brick. 1760.
- 3.Geall, Christin. Cultivated : the elements of floral style. 53. 2020. 978-1-61689-932-5.
- 4.Marking time : objects, people, and their lives, 1500-1800. 2020. 978-0-300-25410-5.
- 5.Dawson, Aileen. English & Irish delftware 1570-1840. British Museum Press. 2010. 978-0-7141-2810-8.
- 6.Flower brick. Five Colleges and Historic Deerfield Consortium Collections Database.
- 7.Unknown English Flower Brick. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Ceramics
1,104 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
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- Fortunato DeperoArtist
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