Medallions, 1790
Attributed to Matthew Boulton
Staff ordshire, England
Stoneware (jasperware)
Chipstone Foundation 2004.12

Ancient urns reemerged as symbols
of death after 1750.
European archaeologists discovered ancient Greek and Roman tombs filled with ceramic funerary urns. Images of these vessels soon began to appear on gravestones and mourning pictures, and came to ornament all manner of household objects. Clock finials, sugar bowls, teapots and coffee pots also took on the shape of urns. The American architect Asher Benjamin eventually felt the need to caution against overuse of this morbid symbol:

Urns admit of a great variety of forms, and when well executed will be very ornamental in their proper places, but they ought not to be used in every situation. The ancients used them to deposit the ashes and bones of the dead and for sacred uses only; and while the mind is impressed with these ideas, it cannot be pleasing to see them in every situation.
–The American Builder’s Companion, 1806