In regard to design and decoration, these vases will bear consideration in detail. There is one very large class of Greek vases which represent what we have called the union of pottery and sculpture. In one we have the helmeted head of Pallas Athene surmounted by a figure of Nike, or Victory. On others are Tritons bearing Nereïds, Medusa's head, pennate figures, and the winged steeds of Aurora. The artist had no thought of utility to hamper him in designing accessories. It is said that M. Bracquemond, while in the Louvre, was attracted by one of the Grecian vases of this class found in Apulia (see Fig. 167). The style is full of grandeur and pomp. The form of the vase would be heavy and clumsy were its outline unrelieved by the decorating figures. On the neck stands a divinity in graceful drapery. Lower down, on the sides, are two statuettes of deities, and on either side of Minerva's head surmounted by Nike in front are two Tritons, with their horse-feet pawing the air. This vase suggested to M. Bracquemond a design for the Memorial Vases in Washington. All that he thus derived, however, was merely a suggestion.
The details of the design may be gathered from a description of the vases themselves. One is intended to represent the year in which the United States won independence; the other the hundredth anniversary of that event. Between them is a whole century of history. The vase "1776" rises from a base consisting of greenish, foamy waves, lashing angrily against rocks surmounted by a circlet of cannon modelled after the ordnance of Revolutionary times. In this we have the whole story of the struggle for independence, and of the turmoil and confusion of the strife. It is worth noting that this symbolical use of the wave ornamentation is strictly classical. When the potters of Greece sought a symbol of caprice and mutation, they could find none more expressive than the foam-crested waves of the sea. From the cannon the body of the vase swells gracefully outward, and attains its widest girth near the top, where it curves rapidly inward to the upper rim. The orifice is closed by a star-covered dome of blue, from either side of which spring statuettes of Fame and Victory. On a pedestal on the rim in front stands a bust of Washington, modelled by Houdon, after one formerly owned by Lafayette, and now in the Louvre.