GEORGE WASHINGTON * Personally Owned & Used MOUNT VERNON Guglet Vase From SLAVE
Guaranteed Authentic
Large 18th c. Chinese export blue china trade guglet OWNED AND USED by First President of the United States GEORGE WASHINGTON, from a former slave, with impeccable provenance from the renowned Huntington family. Fifth-generation physicians, the Huntingtons were abolitionists and many were known to have ex-slaves as patients. George Huntington famously founded HUNTINGTON'S DISEASE.
"I, Gary Jansen, do hereby attest to the following facts surrounding a Blue China Trade Vase once belonging to George Washington and having been passed down through one of his slaves, and then to several other slaves including Katherine Rock, and finally ending up with my ancestor George Huntington. I am the stepson of Dr. Charles Gardiner Huntington Jr. who died in 2000 and was a fifth-generation physician, whose Grandfather (my step Great Grandfather) was George Huntington who famously founded Huntington's Disease. The Huntington's were abolitionists and many generations were known to have ex-slaves as patients...My stepfather, Dr. Charles G. Huntington, and his father Dr. Charles Huntington Sr. and his sister Elizabeth Huntington referred to this vase on a regular basis and said it is also referenced in the two volume Huntington Genealogy books...The vase was always displayed in our home in a place of honor. I have no reason whatsoever to disbelieve the attestation of Huntington on this vase of the family traditions that were passed down to me. - Gary Warren Jansen"
Blue and white china was typical of the fashionable porcelain of the eighteenth century. Washington was fond of this type of porcelain and ordered it on at least nine occasions. His first order of blue and white porcelain arrived in April 1763.
The guglet is similar to several artifacts found in the Mount Vernon museum collection. The museum recently hosted an exhibition of household items that descended within enslaved families, and notes that Washington did own blue-and-white porcelain guglets. During Washington's lifetime, theft was particularly frequent; over the years enslaved people at Mount Vernon were accused of stealing a wide variety of objects. Enslaved family members have long used blue-and-white tableware, a tradition they trace to their ancestors at Mount Vernon.
George Washington received his first shipment of porcelains from England in 1758 from a London merchant named Richard Washington. Although the journey across the Atlantic was often unforgiving for fragile ceramics, Washington happily reported that he received his order "without any breakage." Washington made his first purchases of porcelains in his bachelor years at Mount Vernon. He would continue to acquire Chinese porcelain throughout his life.