Replicas of Hogarth’s beautiful urns for sale!
To raise funds for The Mulberry Garden project at Hogarth’s House the Trust is offering replicas of the fabulous lead urns given by celebrity actor David Garrick to William Hogarth for sale at £895, made to order. All profits go to support the Trust’s work. The Trust is very grateful to Pot Pourri, the florists in Chiswick High Road, where two urns formed the centrepiece of a lavish Valentine’s window display. Decorated with finely modelled swags of flowers and lions’ heads, the urns are topped by pine cones. The flowers symbolise the fertility and pleasure of a garden, the pine cones are a classical symbol of eternal life.
The love story between David Garrick and his beautiful dancer wife, Eva Maria Veigel, a talented Austrian dancer whose stage name was “La Violette”. Lady Burlington is said to have introduce the dancer to Garrick and Lord Burlington gave her a huge £6,000 dowry, leading to speculation that she might be his love child. She was also a star and played hard to get, refusing to perform with Garrick at his Drury Lane Theatre. Their celebrity wedding in 1749 would have featured in Hello magazine had it existed then!
The Trust commissioned the restoration/conservation of the urns in 2013. An exceptionally high quality mould was made and replicas created to place on the gate piers at Hogarth’s House since the originals are too fragile and valuable to put back there. An skilled sculpture conservator has cast the replicas in Jesmonite, a modern, durable, flame-resistant compound, with a very high quality finish. They are lighter in weight than the lead urns (which are filled with mortar) but astonishingly close in appearance and finish to the originals. The colour is integral to the material and will not wear off.
The urns were included in the April 2016 issue of Gardens Illustrated magazine
The handsome graphics, designed by Toni Marshall, tell not only the story of the garden from the 1680s to the present, but also provide a historical context, describing gardens and gardeners in 18th and 19th century Chiswick and neighbouring areas.