This is not a Newton Pottery original. It is in fact an exact copy of an urn produced by the Garnkirk pottery factory in Scotland. We know this because Garnkirk exhibited a range of glazed ceramics at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, including this urn, which was illustrated in the Garnkirk catalogue as ‘The Vase of All Nations’. A young Queen Victoria sits in the centre, holding her sceptre and orb as signs of her royal status, surrounded by a frieze of figures from different nations representing Africa, Asia and North America, each bearing a gift for the queen, gifts that also represent commerce and industry, the wealth of the British Empire. The handles are two angels.

Somehow Boyd got hold of the moulds, and began producing the Garnkirk urn here in Aotearoa. His pottery mark is clearly visible on the base of the urn. It has been bisque-fired, which means it has been fired once, and then instead of being glazed and fired again, it has been painted to appear like stone.

There is another ceramic urn in the museum collection that covers similar territory. This is a garden urn based on the Medici Vase, a monumental marble krater (a Greek vase used to mix wine and water) made in the 1st century AD for the Roman market in garden ornaments. It was made by Robert Heron after 1880, a potter we don’t know much about, and like the copy of the Garnkirk urn, this one has been bisque-fired and then painted.

Both of these show the fashion in Aotearoa for large ornaments and statuary that are based on European culture – signs of Home in a new land.