Vases: History & Styling Guide for UAE Homes

The vase might be the single most enduring form in the history of decorative objects — a vessel shaped to hold water and flowers, refined over thousands of years into an art form in its own right. Chinese ceramics in particular carried vase-making to extraordinary heights, developing techniques and materials that the rest of the world would spend centuries trying to replicate. From humble clay pots to the porcelain vases so closely associated with China that the word itself became shorthand for fine ceramics, the vase has always been where function and craftsmanship meet most visibly in a home.

China's relationship with ceramics stretches back further than almost anywhere else on earth — fragments of pottery discovered at the Xianrendong Cave site in Jiangxi Province have been dated to between 18,000 and 17,000 BCE, making them among the oldest known ceramic objects in the world. For thousands of years afterward, Chinese potters steadily refined their techniques, developing increasingly sophisticated glazes, forms, and firing methods that set them apart from ceramic traditions developing elsewhere.

The true breakthrough came around 600 CE, when Chinese craftsmen developed true porcelain — a remarkably fine, nearly non-porous ceramic made from kaolin clay and fired at extraordinarily high temperatures, up to 1,350 degrees Celsius, using kiln technology far more advanced than existed anywhere else at the time. This achievement was so specifically Chinese that the material is still called "china" in everyday English, a linguistic fossil of just how completely the country dominated fine ceramic production for over a thousand years.

Porcelain production reached its most celebrated period during the Ming dynasty, which ruled from 1368 to 1644. Ming-era kilns produced an enormous range of forms — vases, bowls, teapots, plates — many commissioned specifically for the imperial court and distinguished by extraordinary precision, refined glazes, and decorative motifs that balanced technical mastery with genuine artistry. Ming vases became prized objects both within China and, once trade routes opened further, across the wider world, inspiring European potters for centuries as they attempted, often unsuccessfully, to replicate porcelain's particular strength and translucency.

Styling it at home: A well-chosen vase does more decorative work than almost any other single object in a room, since it can be restyled endlessly with the seasons — fresh flowers in spring, dried stems and pampas grass in autumn, or left entirely empty as a sculptural object in its own right. On a dining table, a vase becomes the natural centrepiece; on a console or shelf, it anchors a styled vignette alongside books or candles. While ancient Chinese vases were fired from kaolin clay, our woven rattan glass vase brings that same vessel tradition into a warmer, more textural form suited to contemporary UAE interiors.

Shop the Woven Rattan Glass Vase