Flower brick

A flower brick is a type of vase, cuboid-shaped like a building brick, and designed to be seen with the long face towards the viewer.{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01pm6m5|title=BBC One - Antiques Roadshow, Series 36, Sainsbury Centre Norwich 1, English Delftware flower bricks|work=BBC Online|date=12 January 2014 |accessdate=21 May 2015}}{{cite web|url=https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O21382/flower-brick-unknown/|title=Flower brick|date=1760 |publisher=Victoria and Albert Museum|accessdate=21 May 2015}}

Traditional flower bricks are made of a ceramic material, usually delftware or other tin-glazed earthenware.{{Cite book|last=Geall|first=Christin|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1146232983|title=Cultivated : the elements of floral style|date=2020|others=Erin Benzakein|isbn=978-1-61689-932-5|edition=1st|location=New York|pages=53|oclc=1146232983}}{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1139014022|title=Marking time : objects, people, and their lives, 1500-1800|date=2020|others=Edward Town, Angela McShane, Yale Center for British Art|isbn=978-0-300-25410-5|location=New Haven|oclc=1139014022}}{{Cite book|last=Dawson|first=Aileen|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/501396922|title=English & Irish delftware 1570-1840|date=2010|publisher=British Museum Press|isbn=978-0-7141-2810-8|location=London|oclc=501396922}}{{Cite web|title=Flower brick|url=https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+56.002|access-date=2021-10-26|website=Five Colleges and Historic Deerfield Consortium Collections Database}}{{Cite web|title=Unknown English Flower Brick|url=https://emuseum.mfah.org/objects/46393/flower-brick|website=The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston}} The top surface has a large hole into which water is poured, and a number of smaller holes into which flower stems are inserted, so that the flowers are kept in position. These vessels are a sub-type of the boughpot or tulipiere, which have more rounded shapes. Flower bricks are thought to have been the most common vessel for flowers besides vases in the 18th century.

Some scholars suggest that flower bricks may have been used as quill holders and inkwells during the 17th century, although this is debated. There are few surviving pictorial representations of these objects in use during the 17th or 18th century.