Three famous characters from Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe embellish these French vases, made to hold spills—slender twists of paper used to light fireplaces. The figures of Uncle Tom and Eva in a garden on one vase, and Eliza escaping slavery across a frozen river on the other, were inspired by printed illustrations for Stowe’s landmark piece of 19th-century fiction. An ardent abolitionist, Stow wrote her text in response to the second Fugitive Slave Act (1850), which diminished the rights of both free and fugitive African Americans and punished anyone who aided runaways. Stowe was partially inspired by the autobiography of Josiah Henson, a slave who fled a tobacco plantation in North Bethesda, Maryland, making his way to Canada in 1830. First serialized in an abolitionist magazine, the chapters were published as an illustrated novel in 1852. Translated into many languages, Uncle Tom’s Cabin soon became the second best-selling book in the world after the Bible. The popular novel and its illustrations stimulated numerous spin-offs, including these rare ornamental vases, manufactured in Limoges, a bustling porcelain manufacturing city that exported quantities of wares to the United States.