I kept bumping into these cute vases with their smooth flawless faces of well-made-up and well-coiffured women. They appeared to come from another era, and they were foreign to me.
What were there?
My auction buddy Janet recognized them immediately and said they were head vases. They looked like drinking mugs without the handles, but a quick glance made it quite obvious that these were not for sipping coffee. They were too clean and polished.
The women painted on them were far from dowdy. They represented the established view of what was lovely in a woman: clear white skin, hair in place, full eyelashes (or not), pearls around the neck, earrings in the ears, red lipstick on the lips and rose rouge on the cheeks.
They exuded taste, elegance, culture and class.
Head vases appeared around World War II but became very popular in the 1950s, fueled by florist shops that used them to hold their flower arrangements. Many were imported from Japan from the 1950s to 1970s, made by U.S. companies that largely sold them as part of their product lines, including Relpo, Enesco and Lefton. California artist Betty Lou Nichols is said to have produced some of the most collectible.
One site estimated that more than 10,000 styles were created, mostly in porcelain and ceramics. A collector who blogs as The Lady of the House said in a post several years ago that the most popular she had found were teenagers and women, especially those with hats, hands, eyelashes and jewelry. I found that the vases were not just busts; there were ashtrays, lipstick holders, head lamps and more, according to the Head Vase Museum.
Movie stars such as Lucille Ball, Grace Kelly and Bette Davis also found their likenesses on them, as well as Jackie Kennedy. Here are photos of what one site identified as rare vases that were sold on eBay.
In an online interview, the son of the founder of Rubens Originals, which got its start in 1947, said their vases were sold to flower shops and gift distributing companies, among others. Women with earrings and pearls were the best sellers, he added.
By the 1980s, he noted, the company couldn’t give them away for 25 cents. The shops didn’t want them anymore. Now, though, they’re bringing in big bucks: I found some selling up to $1,600 on the web. That also plays out at auctions, where bidding on them can get intense.
As I researched the head vases, I kept wishing that I’d see some faces that looked like mine. But since the first ones were produced 50 or more years, that was not likely. In a Q&A on the Head Vase Museum site, someone else wondered the same and asked about it.
The answer was that the most glamorous were white (I also found some very elegant ones of Japanese women), but the owner of the museum included a photo of one that he considered his favorite: a black woman produced by Topline Imports Inc. of Japan. He valued it at $75 to $150, depending on condition.
So, I went searching for more. The first I found was what I had expected. It wasn’t an African American but was described by the eBay seller as a vintage Lefton African lady head vase. She had tall hair with a bone sticking out from both sides – the stereotypical early African image. The seller said it was from the 1940s and gave it a starting bid of $78. Then I found a similar one in white with the bone and hair in gold selling for $49.99. I also found two green ones, without the bones.
Here are others: a vintage one that sold for $65. Someone was trying to identify the MK marking on this one. This seller described the offering as Black Americana.
I did find a contemporary Cameo girl Celeste collection of an African American woman, and I’m sure there are other such ones, since some companies are creating new ones or reproducing the old ones.
Head vase collectors warned against fakes or new pieces that are not identified as such.
