Conta & Boehme Spill Vase Entitled "Oyster Girl"

Offered for sale is a late 19th century "Fairing" spill vase produced by Conta & Boehme entitled "Oyster Girl". It is modelled as a woman standing behind her seafood stall selling all manner of delights such as lobster. The spill vase is fashioned as a basket for oysters. Fairing refers to a small porcelain ornament depicting a variety of scenes, humorous, political or domestic. The ornament almost always incorporates a base and many fairings have a caption describing the scene or making some point inscribed on that base. China fairings are so named because they were given away as prizes at fairs in the Victorian era, although some were manufactured simply for sale. They first started appearing in the middle of the nineteenth century and remained popular until the start of the First World War.