Shape Number: 299
The interesting part is where “Harewood” comes from. The evidence points very strongly to Harewood House in Yorkshire and the Lascelles family collection. Harewood was famous for an exceptional collection of French and Oriental porcelain, especially Chinese bottle-shaped vessels fitted with elaborate English gilt-bronze mounts. Edward “Beau” Lascelles collected French and Oriental porcelain on a scale comparable with the future George IV.
The heavy gold elements are not simply painted decoration. Minton has modeled them to look like metal mounts applied over a porcelain bottle: the broad gold straps running vertically down the body, the band encircling the shoulder, and especially the large ribbon-like loops hanging from the neck.
That was very much the appearance of porcelain at Harewood. The Lascelles family owned Chinese bottle vases mounted in ormolu by firms such as Vulliamy. One documented group from Harewood is described as having bottle-shaped porcelain bodies surrounded by reeded ribbons and elaborate gilt-bronze fittings. Another Harewood garniture consisted of Chinese bottle vases fitted with gilded bronze bases, rims, handles and masks; these were acquired for the Lascelles family around 1806–1810.
So Minton appears to have done something clever with shape 299: instead of attaching real ormolu to an imported porcelain bottle, they created the entire “mounted bottle” in porcelain and then gilded the molded mounts to imitate metal.
The shape drawing is from The Minton Archive.