Outlet Moorcroft William Shakespeare Oberon’s Ode Vase 46/12 – Ltd Ed 5 Moorcroft

Moorcroft Oberon’s Ode Vase

2021 William Shakespeare Collection 

Designer: Helen Dale

Limited Edition of 5 only

Shape: 46/12

Dimensions: H 30 x W 12.5 x D 12.5 cm

William Shakespeare was one of the greatest and most versatile writers the world has ever seen.  In his plays, poems and sonnets he names 180 different plants. He was not a botanist but mostly use the old English words, which everyone was familiar with, to describe the flowers he wrote about.  Many of his plays were written for a certain time of the year, and but it is the spring that Shakespeare most enjoyed.

In a Midsummer Night’s Dream, Oberon words capture the essence of the spring flowers which are mentioned so often in Shakespeare’s work, and three of these plants inspired designer, Helen Dale.

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows;

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

With sweet musk roses and with eglantine. 

The honeysuckle has been the emblem of firm and constant affection, for when it climbs a tree or bush it entwines with such a strong grip that the mark can usually be seen in the branch which supports it.

The eglantine that Shakespeare writes about, is a plant that we called Sweet Briar. It gives out a pleasant and characteristic fragrance at dusk.  Helen’s Sweet Briar rose looks very much like Apothecary’s Rose, a plant brought to the British Isles from France for medicinal purposes and which has remained unchanged in character and appearance since those early days. 

Helen’s third plant is the violet – one of the flowers most frequently referred to by Shakespeare with its heart shaped leaves. Always valued for its beauty and fragrance, the flower has given us the name of a colour and one of the hues of the rainbow.  In a Midsummer Night’s Dream Shakespeare describes the small flower, as a ‘nodding violet’, woken by the warm breeze that comes in spring which wafts the sweet scent of violets into the air.  Together this trio of flowers brings the words of Shakespeare to life, with colour and vibrancy.