By Louise Irvine

Visitors to WMODA in Hollywood are greeted by a colossal Doulton vase that stands imposingly at the entrance to the museum. It stands over 6 feet tall and weighs in the region of 500 pounds, so it is hard to miss! Amazingly, there are two of these masterpieces and the other one was the centerpiece of the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. The Chicago vase was “lost” for many years and a recent lecture at Northwestern University Guild revealed How to Lose (and Find) a 500- Pound Vase!

The story of these two enormous Doulton exhibition vases is extraordinary, as can be seen in my previous articles.  Having been purchased by the Maharaja of Baroda in 1893, the gigantic vase at WMODA “disappeared” for nearly a century and was discovered in an English country house estate. It was auctioned at Christie’s of London in 1986 and then disappeared again to an anonymous bidder. It came up for auction again in 2011, when it was acquired by Arthur Wiener and took pride of place in his Hamptons home.

Having traveled from London to New York to Florida, the Maharaja vase had a fraught last-minute detour during the museum’s move to Hollywood. The body of the vase, which is 30 inches in diameter, would not fit through an interior door in the new building and had to go for a spin around the block! Watch the video in the article about the Maharaja Vase on the Move.

The Chicago vase also has an eventful history. It was purchased by the ladies of Northwestern University Guild at the 1893 World’s Fair. The vase languished for many years in the basement of the Museum of Science and Industry among cans of vegetables. I came across it in the mid-1980s during my Royal Doulton research into the World Columbian Exposition and became part of a campaign to reinstate it at the Guild’s building on the university campus in Evanston, IL. The story of its discovery and 1987 unveiling is told in a recent guild lecture by Kay Burlingham and Madeline Crispell.

At the turn of the last century, the Chicago vase, which was painted by Florence Lewis, was displayed in all its glory in Northwestern’s Lunt Library. The walls around it were decorated with a frieze depicting production processes at the Doulton Lambeth Pottery. This painted canvas frieze was designed for the Doulton pavilion at the World’s Fair by William Rowe, who specialized in tile panels and architectural projects. For many years, scaled watercolor designs for these panels were in the Doulton archives before being purchased by the Harriman-Judd collection in Los Angeles. They were sold again many years later and acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London where they can be viewed today. The canvas frieze was donated to the Museum of Science and Industry in 1940 along with the colossal Doulton vase and Kay Burlingham is now on the trail to see if the panels have survived. Stay tuned!

Read more about the massive Doulton vase

The Maharaja Vase | Wiener Museum

A Tale of Two Vases | Wiener Museum

Doulton at Chicago World’s Fair | Wiener Museum