Chelsea and Other Early English Porcelain

A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

A PRIVATE COLLECTION CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

A PRIVATE COLLECTION CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

15 Duke Street St James’s London SW1Y 6DB Tel: +44 (0)20 7 389 6550 Fax: +44 (0)207 389 6556 Email: gallery@haughton.com www.haughton.com ALL ITEMS ARE FOR SALE

Foreword

Collections offered in their entirety allow the collector a unique opportunity to further select from the very careful choice of another. This very notable Private collection was built up over a period of more than 50 years through the love that the collector had for the earliest of the products from the Chelsea Manufactory under the proprietorship of Nicholas Sprimont the Silversmith, Charles Gouyn the Jeweller and Anthony Supply who was probably the Chemist. It is extremely fitting too that we offer this selection of Chelsea Porcelain on the 270th anniversary of the Manufactory’s inception.

The Chelsea porcelain included within this catalogue highlights the important traits of establishing a new business in England at a precarious economic time. Sprimont was an established silversmith for the very highest strata of English society, he had in 1743 not only established his mark of NS* at the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths Hall but had also been commissioned by Frederick Prince of Wales to make the Neptune Centrepiece and a series of sauceboats to enhance its triumphal marine theme. The figure of Neptune triumphant, holding his symbol of the trident, is central throughout the design and he surmounts the centrepiece supported at various levels by dolphins and other more mythical river and sea creatures.

The essence of succeeding in a business venture of making porcelain for the first time in England lay in the importance of appealing to the Aristocratic and moneyed classes of the day. The new and novel material of porcelain, that had been so successful to the Kingdoms of Augustus II The Strong at Meissen and Louis XV in France at Vincennes and Sevres, had to be shown to compare with the established ‘Taste of Silver’ in form, shape and variety. This had been proved at both Meissen and Vincennes where Court silversmiths such as Johan Jakob Irminger and Jean-Claude Duplessis has been invited to develop new designs for the application of the porcelain modellers, which in both cases led to them being appointed artistic directors of each of the concerns. The success of these two manufactories and others across Europe was secured by their new artistic style translating the baroque silver taste into porcelain but also ultimately by their financial support from their King. This financial safety and security was a luxury that was simply not available to the three partners of the Chelsea manufactory so it was with huge risk to themselves that they began to produce their carefully crafted porcelain in the ‘silver taste’ and style that drew the eye and impressed the aristocracy. The first notice that we have recorded of wares being made at Chelsea is an advertisement in the issue of the ‘Daily Advertiser’ dated 5th March 1745: ‘We hear that the China made at Chelsea is arrived to such Perfection, as to equal if not surpass the finest old Japan, allow’d so by the most approv’d judges here; and that the same is in so high esteem of the Nobility, and the Demand so great, that a sufficient Quantity can hardly be made to answer the Call for it.’

The first period of production at Chelsea, marked with the incised triangle mark, the alchemical symbol of fire, produced white porcelain wares in the ‘silver taste’. Porcelain exhibiting the following three traits can be described as in the ‘silver taste’; those pieces that are based on specific designs by silversmiths; pieces produced at the manufactory as white porcelain; and pieces where the moulded ornament is the only decoration. Painted decoration for the large part did not occur at the Manufactory until the end of the incised triangle period, those pieces that are decorated, the Tea Plant Moulded Beaker ,(page 7), would have been bought in the white by a retailer and then decorated perhaps in the workshop of William Duesbury. Although unmarked in this case, recorded examples are marked with the incised triangle mark and an example from the Dr F.S.Mackenna collection is recorded with the rare Crown and Trident mark in underglaze blue. There is every possible likelihood that this mark is somehow connected with Nicholas Sprimont’s Royal commission of the Neptune Service, where the Trident symbol appears throughout and of course the Crown may respectfully allude to his Royal client Frederick Prince of Wales.

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

The superb Chelsea Crayfish salt, (page 8), is remarkable for its state of preservation, the crayfish climbs over a rockwork support that is unusual for its inclusion of many more English native shells, stippled seaweeds and corals than are recorded on others. The form of the salt is based on several designs by Juste Aurele Meissonier, Orfevre du Roi Louis XV, engraved by Gabriel Hurquier at the Rue St Jacques, see Plate 14 from ‘Livre de Legumes Inventees et Dessinees Par J.Mer’ (Juste-Aurele Meissonnier), published Paris 1744. The crayfish salt also derives inspiration from the silver ‘surtout de table’ which included a pair of remarkable tureens made for Evelyn Pierrepont 2nd Duke of Kingston to a design by J.A. Meissonier 1734 by Paris silversmiths Henry Adnet and Pierre Francois Bonnestrenne. The design of these extraordinary rococo forms was at the height of new fashion for the expression of natural forms pioneered by Paris silversmiths and was engraved by Gabriel Hurquier for inclusion in his ‘Livres d’Ornements’, featuring designs by J.A Meissonnier, Plate 115 in folio 72 published c. 1744. Sprimont created this Crayfish salt model first in silver-gilt for inclusion as a pair within the Neptune Service, for Frederick Prince of Wales, these remain within the Royal Collection, thus endorsing the translation of a Royal ‘silver style’ into the new Chelsea porcelain.

The ‘Goat and Bee’ cream jug, (page 10), its design eluding us until now, is taken from an original drawing by Francois Boucher, engraved circa 1740 by Gabriel Hurquier and translated into porcelain, in the spirit of the natural rococo by Nicholas Sprimont or one of his highly trained modellers. The documentary example in the British Museum Collection bears the date 1745 as well as ‘Chelsea’ in incised script. Sprimont was further moved to use this engraved design as inspiration of the Ashburnham centrepiece in 1747 two years later. With the success of the ‘Silver style’ at Chelsea translating the newest rococo ornament into porcelain in England, came the need to produce more porcelain, which in turn meant a new recipe of paste, the simplifying of forms and a new fashion for painted decoration which followed the successful style of decoration emanating from Meissen and Sevres. Only the most versatile of the shapes and designs of the ‘silver taste’ survived this necessary change and the new and improved body was to be marked with the stamped and applied raised anchor. This great change was also marked by the departure of Charles Gouyn from the partnership and the expansion of the firm to take on new buildings in Lawrence Street, which effectively doubled their manufacturing areas. It was on the 9th January 1750 that Sprimont published a notice to his clients through The Daily Advertiser; The Manufacturer of China Ware at Chelsea……has been employed ever since his last Sale in making a considerable Parcel… it will consist of a Variety of Services for Tea, Coffee, Chocolate, Porringers, Dishes and Plates of different Forms and Pattern, and of a great Variety of Pieces for Ornament in a Taste entirely new.

The deep octagonal silver-shaped dish, (page 14), is gloriously painted with the new fashionable Japanese kakiemon style of decoration that was to typify the ‘Taste entirely new’, the ‘Hob in a Well’ is a symbolic design of hope through adversity ending in great good luck. The paste and glaze of the raised anchor marked pieces has beguiled collectors for centuries, the application of the tin oxide in the glaze gives the wares an appearance of softness when viewed together with an incredible charm. The double ogival teabowl, (page 16), painted after the Meissen pattern of the ‘Flying Fox’, is a rare shape, though the shape with the gently lobed edge is inspired by contemporary fashionable Vincennes porcelain copying Chinese porcelains. Similarly the decoration of the Scalopendrium moulded Beaker, (page 18), is copied in essence with the most

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charming of individual native English wild flowers, in the simple and pale style of the magical tones that first emanated at Vincennes, whose painters derived inspiration from seventeenth century engravings and watercolours. The incredibly rare silver shape of oval dish (page 21), shows how the popular form of the earlier shape was carried on but now with a fuller type of painted decoration, still in the Vincennes style but painted gloriously in puce camaieu

by Jefferyes Hamett O’Neale, with an incredibly detailed Arcadian scene with a wooded surrounding landscape.

His miniaturist techniques enhanced and enriched the porcelain at Chelsea during both the raised anchor and red anchor marked periods, though it is for his Fable decoration that he is now justifiably particularly famed for. The silver shaped circular dish, (page 26), is one of the stars of the collection, the shape of the dish, is taken from a silver original form designed by Nicholas Sprimont, painted by Jefferyes Hamett O’Neale with the Fable of the Bull and the Mouse. The circular plate provides a breath-taking expanse for O’Neale to conjure with the drama of the scene, the Bull arches its back in an incredibly powerful posture, exhibiting a tangible strength in its display.

O’Neale deals with the mouse in an altogether different way, we see speed, as it runs from the scene but also vulnerability from its size and yet he succeeds, with his vast skill in the art of the miniaturist’s technique in raising its presence to equal that of the Bull, because without it there would be no moral or lesson at the end of the tale.

There is a single piece of underglaze blue decoration within the collection, (page 25), the Chelsea dessert plate dating to the transition of the raised anchor period and that of the red anchor period circa 1752. There are only a handful of these plates that survive and the majority are marked with the anchor mark also in underglaze blue to the reverse within concentric blue circles. The style of the decoration is Japanese and the ingenuity of the painter of these plates is shown within the aesthetic success of the stylised phoenix perched in the trees. A mastery of the cobalt colour is very clear from the series of different tones of blue that can be discerned throughout the pattern and border decoration.

The fluted rectangular dish, painted painted with two astonishingly detailed scenes by Jefferyes Hamett O’Neale, (pages 30 and 31), comes from a group of porcelain painted by O’Neale that simply rivals the very best painters of porcelain across Europe and shows O’Neale as a master of layered perspective within both reflective views of the Arcadian landscape.

The pair of Chelsea leaf moulded sauceboats, (page 32), of exceptional small size are derived from smaller Chinese blanc de chine originals dating from the late seventeenth century. A ‘new form’ developed by Nicholas Sprimont after 1749, in his repertoire of pieces ‘of a taste entirely new’. The form is also a naturalistic form and therefore transitional in the translation of the oriental influence to that of the naturalistic English Rococo which was pioneered at Chelsea. This small size is extremely unusual and the Vincennes style of floral painting shows a clear understanding of the French taste of naturalistic decoration emanating from the Royal Manufactory of Vincennes.

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

One of the very few pieces of porcelain not from the Chelsea Manufactory but emanating from the Bow porcelain manufactory is the vase on (page 36). The shape and form is copied from the Chinese, the floral decoration derives its spirited nature from the European floral palette of the Meissen manufactory and the hand specifically of J.G.Klinger. This naturalistic style and palette is extremely rare to find on Bow ornamental wares of this rare small size. One other similar but slightly larger is recorded in the Geoffrey Freeman Collection at Pallant House Chichester, see Gabszewicz and Freeman, Bow Porcelain, no. 137.

Botanical and Ornithological themes on pieces from the collection are represented too and amongst them, the superb Chelsea Saucer Dish, depicting parrots in a tree, (page 41). This piece comes from Gunton Park, the home of the Lords Suffield, this noble country House in Norfolk retained much of its original contents. The legendary sale on 16th September 1980 was conducted by Irelands auctioneers when, on the order of the trustees of the Gunton Park Estate, paintings, furniture and silver were sold. Great porcelain rarities were found in the cellars there in storage including this saucer dish and the famed teapot and cover with similar decoration.

The Chelsea Botanical plate, (page 53), of the smallest size painted with Hans Sloane type decoration of a flowering purple herbaceous plant. The Botanical theme is inspired by the painting of J.G. Klinger at Meissen in the 1740’s, whose depictions of flowers and butterflies is legendary, this style adopted at Chelsea found expression within the wider decorative trompe l’oeil style preferred at this time and beautifully encapsulates Man’s Triumph and interest in Nature and the Rococo spirit. Although the effect was decorative, many specimens were copied with scientific accuracy and the illusions are simply breathtaking. The name associated with these plates is Hans Sloane as he had leased land to the Society of Apothecaries in 1722 for the Chelsea Physic Garden. We then find an advertisement in Faulkner’s Dublin Journal for the 1st July 1758 describing a service decorated ‘In Curious Plants, with Table Plates, Soup Plates, and Dessert Plates, enamelled from Sir Hans Sloane’s plants’. This one advertisement gives us the descriptive title used thereafter for these most celebrated of all decorative themes on Chelsea porcelain. Designs were copied from a number of sources, including Phillip Miller’s ‘Figures of the most Beautiful, Useful and Uncommon Plants described in the Gardener’s Dictionary’, published 1755-60, in two volumes, illustrated by Georg Dionysius Ehret, who incidentally married the sister-in-law of Phillip Miller. Miller was the curator of the Chelsea Physic Garden. The other source for designs when copied by the Chelsea painters was from ‘Plantae Selectae’, published by Dr. Christopher James Trew of Nuremburg and Vogel of Augsburg, and illustrations after paintings by Georg Dionysius Ehret. The general effect of the botanical specimens can be viewed in the Physic Garden archive.

The Saucer Dish, (page 42), comes from a service painted by Jefferyes Hamett O’Neale. This type of Putti or Amorini decoration is listed in the Chesea Catalogue for 1756, see lot 78 on the ‘Thirteenth Day’. O’Neale has taken the inspiration from very intimate pieces of Vincennes porcelain, destined for ladies use within the boudoir, see Joanna Gwilt, Vincennes and Early Sevres Porcelain from the Belvedere Collection, 8, p. 54, for a pomade pot dating to circa 1745, where it is explained that the decoration is copied from Francois Boucher’s work. For a painting by Francois Boucher depicting Putti as Fishermen see Museum of Fine Art Houston, Texas. The image is symbolic of the Triumph of Love.

On (page 46) and dating from the Red Anchor period circa 1755 there is a rare Chelsea figure of a Bagpiper and Marionette Player, together with a boy and a dog, on the same base. The figure is taken from a print entitled ‘Piedmontese Bagpiper’ engraved by Daulle after Jean Dumont le Romain, 1739. See Raymond Yarborough, Bow Porcelain and the London Theatre, p.88, fig. 123 for a playing

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card showing a similar subject and fig.

125. Another recorded to have been exhibited at but not photographed at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Exhibition, ‘Plagiarism Personified’, 1986, lent anonymously but at one time in the Dr. and Mrs. H. Statham collection.

The collection includes many other rarities from the early years at Chelsea but a pair of Dessert Plates, (pages 38 and 39) are great favourites both for the collector and for ourselves.They come from a set of only six surviving decorated in this way that were at one time in some of the greatest porcelain collections of the twentieth century, including the famed collection of Richard Gelston and that of Thomas Burn at Rous Lench Court in Worcestershire. The plates are painted with children playing games, the first with a boy in a yellow jacket wheeling a hoop and the second showing a group of children running together as they play ‘Blind Man’s Buff’. These are games that transcend time and all of us have played in this way throughout the generations that have passed in our own families. We very much look forward to seeing all of you and showing the wonderful selection of pieces in this extraordinary collection that bring together a superb selection of the earliest pieces from the manufactory of Nicholas Sprimont and celebrates 270years since he and his partners first ordered clay.

Brian Haughton and Paul Crane St. James’s London.

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

These beakers appear both in the white and coloured, a single example of a saucer survives at Williamsburg, see John C. Austin, op. cit. No. 17. Also see the coloured example from the Wallace Elliot Collection, now at Williamsburg, which Austin also illustrates, No. 20, it is interesting to note that that example has the addition of coloured floral sprigs on the interior rim to cover fire cracks. Several hands are recorded working with this pattern. The treatment of the leaves is inspired by Vincennes leaf and floral painting of the same period. The lustrous character of the enamels of this hand shows a great verve and a more naturalistic approach than some tea plant colouring, which can appear more stylised.

An extremely rare Chelsea Teaplant Beaker, the gracefully everted silver form with lobed edge, moulded with spiralling sprays of flowering Camellia or Teaplants picked out in bright naturalistic colours, brown line rim.

Circa 1745-49.

Height: 3 ins. (7 cms.)

No Mark.

Provenance: Private English Collection.

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An extremely rare and early Chelsea Crayfish Salt of the Incised Triangle Period, beautifully modelled after the original Silver model by Nicholas Sprimont, with a crayfish cast from life, crawling across a rock before a naturalistic up turned clam shell, applied with cast natural English shells including; whelks, limpets and a variety of bivalves, cockles and turret shells.

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

Circa 1745-49.

Length: 4 ½ ins. (11.5 cms.)

A Silver-gilt crayfish salt from a pair all hallmarked by Nicholas Sprimont (NS*) for 1743 made to augment a service for Frederick Prince of Wales. See Elizabeth Adams, Chelsea Porcelain, p. 18 and pls. 5 and 6. The design was suggested by a print in a series published in France in 1734 based on vegetables and game, after originals by J.A.Meissonnier.

See also F.S. Mackenna, Chelsea Porcelain, The Triangle and Raised Anchor Wares, pl. 55, fig. 109.

Provenance: Private English Collection.

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For an example incised ‘Chelsea’ and dated ‘1745’ see ‘Eighteenth Century English Porcelain from the British Museum’, exhib. Catalogue at the International Ceramics Fair, London , June 1987, p.5 no. 1. Inspired by a drawing by Francois Boucher engraved by Gabriel Hurquier circa 1740.

A very fine and rare Chelsea ‘Goat & Bee’ jug, the slender pearshaped body moulded and sculpted on either side of the base with recumbent horned goats amongst vegetation. Beneath the irregular peach-shaped spout and applied to the shoulder of the jug sits a bee, its legs and wings carefully modelled, the applied oak twig handle with naturalistic oak leaves.

Provenance: Private English Collection.

Circa: 1745-49.

Height: 4 ½ ins (10.7 cms.)

Mark: The incised triangle mark

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

This figure is based on the Roman marble figure of the Faun and Kid which was unearthed in Rome in 1675 and is now in the Prado Museum. For two coloured examples see the Victoria & Albert Museum C.74-1938. Gift of Wallace Elliot and MFA Boston Katz collection 1988.914 26.03 cms.

An extremely rare Vauxhall Figure of a Goatherd, modelled with elegant spiralling contraposto form, wearing a cloak, buttoned jerkin and waistcoat and breeches, his head with flowing windswept hair, a young kid goat on his shoulders, standing supported on a tree stump, the irregularly moulded rococo scrolled base applied with flowers and leaves.

Circa 1755.

Height: 10 ins. (25.5 cms.)

Provenance: Private English Collection.

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A rare Chelsea Octagonal Teabowl of the Large Size and of the Raised Anchor Period, decorated in the Kakiemon palette with panels of stylised flowering poppies alternating with chrysanthemum in tones of iron red, turquoise and blue.

Circa 1750.

Diameter: 3 ½ ins. (8.5 cms.)

Provenance: Private English Collection.

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

Provenance: Dr F. Severne Mackenna, Dr. Riley and Private English Collection.

A rare Chelsea Lobed Beaker of flared form, beautifully decorated in the Kakiemon style with the ‘Red Tiger’ pattern, showing a red tiger chasing insects in flight beside a spray of flowering bamboo which issues from a series of holed rocks beside several branches of flowering prunus, the interior with a sprig, the flared rim with brown line rim.

llustrated Dr. F. Severne Mackenna, Chelsea Porcelain, ‘The Triangle and Raised Anchor Wares’, pl. 10. No. 25. There are just three of these beakers bearing this pattern recorded.

When the paste is looked at through transmitted light, pinpricks of luminosity can be seen, which is a characteristic of the paste in the triangle period. This is the same hand as that found on the acanthus moulded beakers illustrated in the above, op. cit. pl. 9, Nos. 23 and 24.

Circa 1745-49.

Height: 2¾ ins. (7 cms.)

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An Extremely Rare Chelsea Octagonal Deep Dish, painted in the Kakiemon palette with the pattern of the ‘Hob in a Well’, showing a dancing man on one side of a cauldron filled with water in which hides a young child and a lady in red pulling him out, within a stylised garden with flowering bamboo and birds in flight overhead, within a border of stylised flowers and brown line rim.

Circa 1749-50.

Diameter: 8 ¼ ins. (21 cms.)

Provenance: Private English Collection.

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

An extremely rare Chelsea Peach Shaped Dish of the Raised Anchor Period, painted in beautiful kakiemon tones of turquoise, red and blue with the ‘Lady in the Pavilion’ pattern showing a richly robed courtier to one side of the interior of a stylised room with a bird in song perched upon a cage singing to another bird in flight, beneath tasselled drapery.

Circa 1749-52.

Length: 6 ins. (15 cms.)

Provenance: Private English Collection.

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An extremely rare Chelsea double ogival teabowl with delicately lobed lotus petal rim, painted in the kakiemon palette with the ‘Flying Fox’ pattern, showing a red squirrel jumping in the air between a meandering branch of fruiting vines issuing from a series of banded hedges, on which perches a yellow squirrel, the interior with scattered stylised florets.

Circa 1749-52.

Diameter: 3 ¼ ins. (8.5 cms.)

Provenance: Private English Collection.

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

A rare Chelsea Octagonal Soup Plate, painted in the kakiemon style with with pheonix birds, one perched in a pine tree beside flowering prunus and banded hedges and the other in flight, within a formal iron red foliate border.

Circa 1752.

Diameter: 8 ½ ins. (21 cms.)

Provenance: Private English Collection.

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An extremely rare Chelsea Lobed Scalopendrium Moulded Beaker, moulded in crisp low relief with spiralling leaves of the ‘hearts tongue’ fern, delicately painted with individual sprigs of European flowers, including hairbells, anemone and fritillary, in the Vincennes style and palette, brown line rim.

Circa 1749-52.

Height: 2 ¾ ins. (7 cms.)

Mark: Stamped and applied oval pad bearing a raised anchor mark in crisp low relief to the underside.

Provenance: Private English Collection.

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

A rare Chelsea Octagonal Teabowl and Saucer of Large Size, painted in the kakiemon palette with the ‘Lady in a Pavilion’ pattern, showing a Japanese lady beside a stylised tasseled interior.

Circa 1749-52.

Provenance: Private English Collection and Dr. F.S. Mackenna Collection.

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An extremely rare Chelsea Fluted Circular Dish or Scalloped Plate, painted in the Meissen style with a central Italianate or European landscape, two windswept and crossed trees and brown rocks in the foreground, two figures on a path between a turreted castle on the right and another building on the left, within double red line, surrounded by three sprays of flowers after J.G.Klinger, within a brown line rim.

Circa 1750-52.

Diameter: 7 ins. (17.5 cms.)

Provenance: Nightingale, Wabe and Private English Collection.

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

An Extremely Rare Chelsea Silver Shaped Oval Dish painted in puce monochrome by Jefferyes Hamett O’Neale in the Vincennes style with an arcadian riverscene with a figure fishing in the foreground beside windblown trees, the meandering river with rushes at the banks flowing gently into the distant background where boaters gently glide beside a twin arched Stonebridge before a domed and turreted fairytale castle before distant volcano like mountains, with birds in flight overhead within the pink sky, surrounded by sprays and sprigs of European flowers, the moulded edge and scalloped thumbpieces picked out with a brown or mauve line rim.

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Circa 1752-53.

Length: 8 Âź ins. (21 cms.)

Mark: Small red anchor to the underside of the base.

Provenance: Private English Collection.

An Extremely Rare Chelsea Fluted Circular Dish, painted in delicate colours and in the Vincennes style with an arcadian river scene, with figures in the foreground with walking sticks at conversation, a fisherman casting his rod before a still lake or river, with trees on one side and a bastioned turreted castle with bridge causeway, the lake extending to a waterside village before distant mountains, beneath a blue sky. The central panel surrounded with butterflies together with sprays and sprigs of European flowers in the Vincennes style originally copied from J.G.Klinger’s work at Meissen. With brown line rim.

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Circa 1752.

Diameter: 7 ins. (18 cms.)

No Marks.

Provenance: Private English Collection.

A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

Circa 1749-52.

An extremely rare Chelsea Octagonal Coffee Cup and Saucer of the Raised Anchor Period, the cup with scrolled handle, painted in the kakiemon palette with the ‘Flaming Tortoise’ pattern, showing a ‘bearded’ turtle emerging from the sea, two cranes, one strutting and the other in flight, beside flowering bamboo and pine trees, the centre of the saucer and the interior of the cup with a turquoise Dragon in flight, brown line rims.

Height of cup: 2 ½ ins. (6 cms.)

Diameter: 4 ¼ ins. (11 cms.)

Provenance: English Private Collection.

The delicate cut and scrolled handle on the cup is a rare feature. There is a similar teabowl and saucer in the British Museum, see Elizabeth Adams, ‘Chelsea Porcelain’, fig. 7.5.

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An extremely rare Chantilly Trumpet Shaped Beaker, painted in the Japanese Kakiemon palette, with a fan shaped scroll reserve containing stylised vegetation and flowering peonies the reverse with a blue scaled and iron red dragon in flight, the base with a band of iron red double line and stiff leaf, brown line rim.

Circa 1735-40.

Height: 2 Âź ins. (6 cms.)

Provenance: English Private Collection.

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

A very rare Chelsea Lobed Plate of the early Red Anchor Period, painted in the Japanese style in two tones of underglaze blue with two long-tailed phoenix birds perched upon two rocks to one side and flowering bamboo and reeds issuing from rocks on the other side, the border painted with further stylised sprigs of Japanese plants.

Circa 1752.

Diameter: 9 ins. (22.5 cms.)

Anchor mark in rare underglaze blue, within concentric circles.

Private English Collection, bought from Messers Tilley, Sloane Square during the 1960’s.

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A Very Important and Extremely Rare Chelsea Circular Silver Shaped Dish painted by Jefferyes Hamett O’Neale with the Fable of the Bull and the Mouse, the curved long horned Bull in charging attitude, his head bowed down and horns aimed low, his back arched and his tail flying in the air, the mouse flees the sceneto the left, within an arcadian scene a brown windblown tree at the centre of the scene and a waterfall and turreted castle in the background extending the landscape to the distant mountains beyond, with birds in flight in the blue sky above. Surrounded by sprays and sprigs of European flowers and an insect, the silver shaped moulding of the scalloped thumpieces and flutes picked out with a brown or mauve line.

Circa 1752.

Diameter: 9 ins. (22.5 cms.)

Provenance: Private English Collection.

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

A very rare Chelsea Fluted Fable Decorated Beaker, beautifully painted by Jefferyes Hamett O’Neale with the Fable of the Fox and the Crow, the Crow perched high up in a tree with a letter in its beak and the seated Fox gazing up, within an Arcadian landscape, with birds in flight overhead, a red flower to the reverse and two insects to the interior, with brown line rim.

Taken from Aesop’s Fables illustrated by Francis Barlow, second edition published in 1687.

LXVII. This edition contained over one hundred illustrated plates of the subjects. Also Reverend Samuel Croxall, Dean of Hereford, illustrated and published a new version of Aesop’s Fables in 1722 which reached a twelfth edition by 1782. This Fable appears at IX in the 1722 edition.

Circa 1752.

Height: 2 ½ ins. (6.5 cms.)

Provenance: Private English Collection.

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Circa 1752.

A Fine Chelsea Octagonal Deep Soup Plate, beautifully decorated in the Japanese Kakiemon palette with a Ho Ho bird perched high up on a holed blue rock between sprays of flowering peony that issue on each side, an iron red Pheonix bird in flight overhead, within a border of scrolling iron red foliage and stylised red and gold mons.

Diameter: 9 ½ ins. (24 cms.)

Small red anchor to the underside.

Private English Collection, Dr F. S. Mackenna Collection, no. 490.

Illustrated in Apollo July 1944.

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

A very rare Chelsea Ribbed Conical Teabowl and Saucer, beautifully finely painted by Jefferyes Hamett O’Neale with double landscapes, the teabowl painted on one side with two figures playing ‘Tug o war’ being adjudicated by a red caped man, within an Arcadian landscape, trees and rocks one one side and purple headed mountains in the distance, with birds in flight overhead, the interior with a single butterfly, the saucer with two similar figural landscape scenes, with brown line rims.

Circa 1752.

Diameter of the saucer: 4 ¾ ins. (12 cms.)

Height of the teabowl: 2 ins. (5 cms.)

Small red anchors to the underside.

Provenance: Private English Collection.

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The extremely Important Chelsea fluted rectangular double reflective Dish of the Raised Anchor Period. Beautifully painted

by Jefferyes Hammett O’Neale, the first view with figures at conversation in colours before an Arcadian landscape with classical ruins and delicately fringed trees, before a distant mountainous landscape with birds in flight overhead. The second scene with a further extensive Arcadian landscape, waterfalls and distant mountains.

Circa 1752.

Length: 8½ ins. (22.5 cms.)

The attribution to Jefferyes Hammett O’Neale is confirmed from the characteristic style of the expert miniaturist’s technique in painting the figures and detailed subjects in the foreground of this piece. The two reflective scenes are considered the rarest of the teawares painted by this hand.

Robertson Collection Canada and English Private Collection.

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

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A Fine and Rare Pair of Chelsea Strawberry Leaf moulded Sauceboats of Rare Small Size and of the Raised Anchor Period, of deep cusped shape, supported on four smaller moulded leaf feet together with tendrils across the base, picked out in green, puce and red, the interiors painted with sprays of European flowers in the Vincennes style, applied with a branch handle, strawberry flowers and puce tendrils, with brown line rims.

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Circa 1752.

Height: 4 Âź ins. (10 cms.)

Length: 6 ½ ins. (16.5 cms.)

Provenance: Private English Collection.

A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

A Very Fine and Rare Chelsea Scalloped Circular Dish painted in puce camaieu by Jefferyes Hamett O’Neale, the centre panel with two figures in classical dress at conversation, one seated beside them fishing, before a statue of Mercury holding a caduceas, within an arcadian landscape, a waterfall and trees on one side, a temple on the other issuing vegetation and an ovoid vase as a finial, with mountains in the distance and birds and clouds overhead, surrounded with sprigs and sprays of European flowers, with brown line rim.

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Circa 1752-53.

Diameter: 7 Âź ins. (18.5 cms.)

Mark: Red Anchor to the underside of the base.

Provenance: Private English Collection.

An extremely rare pair of Chelsea Ornithological Finger Bowls and Stands or Water Cups and Stands, of the Red Anchor Period, of turned baluster shape with elegantly flared rim, the cups very delicately painted with English song birds after George Edwards, including a cold tit, nuthatch, fly catcher, green finch and swallow, all perched on leafy branches, together with a bird in flight and insects and butterflies, the interiors with colourful sprays of European flowers, the circular stands painted with similar song birds, with brown line rims.

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

Circa 1754/55.

Diameter of the cup: 3 ½ ins. (9 cms.)

Diameter of stands: 6 ¼ ins. (16 cms.)

Red anchor marks to the underside of the stands.

Provenance: Private English Collection.

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An extremely rare Bow Vase, of spherical globular shape, the elegantly tall tapering neck with slightly flared rim, beautifully painted with a full spray of European flowers, including: a blue hairbell or Campanula, poppy and scented stocks and further similar sprigs together with insects, a lady bird and butterflies in flight, brown line rim.

Circa 1755.

Height: 6 他 ins. (17 cms.)

No Mark.

Provenance: Private English Collection.

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

A rare Chelsea Lotus Petal Moulded Coffee Cup and Saucer, beautifully moulded and delicately painted with colourful sprays of European flowers including roses, hairbells and heartease and further smaller secondary floral sprigs, the interior of the cup with a single heartsease flower and leaf, puce line rims.

Circa 1755.

Height of Coffee Cup: 3 ins. (7.5 cms.)

Provenance: Private English Collection.

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Small red anchor mark to the underside.

A Chelsea Lobed Dessert Plate, painted after Hubert Gravelot with a scene of Children playing ‘wheeling hoops’ and rolling them towards a seated girl who reclines upon a puce foliate scroll entwined with a garland of foliage, with trees on either side, surrounded by sprigs of European flowers, within a brown line rim.

From a set of six surviving plates, five of which were originally in the Richard Gelston Collection, the sixth in the Hutton Collection and now in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

The design entitled ‘Le Jeu du Cerceau’ is adapted from an engraving, perhaps by J.Bacheley, after Hubert Gravelot, see Cyril Cook, Pl.23 (d).

Circa 1755.

Diameter: 9 ¼ ins. (23.5 cms.)

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

A very rare Chelsea Lobed Dessert Plate, painted with ‘Le Cheval Fondu’ after an engraving by J. Bacheley after Hubert Gravelot, showing a group of five children playing ‘Blind Man’s Buff’, within a wooded Arcadian landscapeframed with a rococo puce group of scrolls, surrounded with scattered sprays and sprigs of European flowers, within a brown line rim.

Small red anchor mark to the underside.

Private English, Richard Gelston, Rous Lench, Mrs. E.R.F Lindesay Collections.

F.Severne Mackenna (1951) Chelsea Porcelain of the Red Anchor Period, pl. 26 fig 53. Cyril Cook, ‘The Art of Robert Hancock’, ECC Transactions (1951), Vol. 3, Pt. 1, pp. 54-62, Pl. 23 (b). Bellamy Gardner, ‘Children’s Games on Chelsea Plates’, Apollo, February 1939, p.60, Fig. 1.

Circa 1755.

Diameter: 9 ¼ ins. (23.5 cms.)

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A rare Chelsea Square Section Bottle Vase, painted with colourful sprays and sprigs of European flowering plant, including, roses, bluebells, jonquils and forget-me-knots Circa 1752-55.

Height: 7 Âź ins. (18.5 cms.)

Provenance: Fellowes of Shotesham Park and Private English Collection.

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

Mark: Red anchor mark to the underside.

The Chelsea Gunton Park Naturalistic Parrot Saucer Dish, of the red anchor period, painted in beautiful bright colours with two Parrots or Love birds, perched upon a fruiting branch of cherries, another exotic bird perched beside them and a butterfly and insect in flight above, within a garden rich in flowers and foliage and dark brown rocks in the foreground, brown line rim.

Provenance: Private English Collection and The Lord Suffield Collection Gunton Park.

The Trustees of the Gunton Park Estate. Sale Irelands 16th September 1980.

Only two pieces of this service survive the Teapot and Cover and this present piece.

Circa 1752-55.

Diameter: 6 ins. (15 cms.)

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Circa 1753.

An extremely rare Chelsea Saucer Dish, Painted

by Jefferyes Hammet O’Neal, with a group of five Amorini around an island in the cetre of a river, at various fishing pursuits, with two hooked lines and a single caught fish, before a distant Arcadian mountainous landscape with birds in flight overhead, the foreground with rocks and a gnarled tree stump and branches, in typical dark brown with some scraffito decoration.

Diameter: 7 Âź ins. (17.5 cms.)

Tiny red anchor mark to the underside.

Provenance: J.J.Tuffnel Collection and Private English Collection.

English Ceramic Circle 1948 Exhibition No. 234.

Tournai Chelsea Exhibition London 1953.

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

An extremely rare Chelsea Twin Handled Ecuelle and Cover, of the Red Anchor period, of circular silver form, painted with naturalistic birds, on one side a swan, woodpecker and wading bird and on the other a turkey cock, Chinese pheasant and woodpecker, the flattened cover with beautifully modelled red rose finial and painted with another blue caped melanistic Chinese pheasant perched on one side of a fence and a red squirrel eating nuts beneath a fruiting cherry tree on the other, with a gold line rim.

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Circa 1755.

Diameter: 7 ½ ins. (19 cms.)

Red anchor mark to the underside.

Provenance: Private English Collection.

A very rare Chelsea Circular Warren Hastings Moulded Charger of the Largest Size, the crisply moulded silver shaped charger with three rococo scolled panels enriched with puce detailing, enclosing figural harbour scenes beautifully painted by Jefferyes Hamett O’Neale, showing figures at conversation, beside quaysides at the harbour, with ships in distance and building and trees on either side. The centre painted with large formal sprays of European flowers and butterflies, together with smaller scattered floral sprigs, brown line rim.

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Circa 1755.

Diameter: 18 ½ ins. (47 cms.)

Red anchor mark to the underisde.

Provenance: Private English Collection.

A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

An extremely rare Chelsea Sauceboat, of silver shape with lobed rim, the scrolled rising handle with bifurcated lower kicked out terminal, beautifully painted by Jefferyes Hamett O’Neale with an exotic red crested and wattled bird perched within a fruiting cherry branch, surrounded by 4 other brightly plumed long tailed exotic birds in flight, together with flocks of smaller birds, the interior painted with a caterpillar, yellow butterfly, ladybird and other insects, within a brown line rim.

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Circa 1754-55.

Length: 8 ins. (20 cms.)

Red anchor mark to the underside.

Provenance: Private English Collection.

An extremely rare Chelsea Figural Group of a Bagpiper and Marionette Player, Boy and Dog, beautifully modelled, the bagpiper wearing a scarlet lined yellow coat over his waistcoat and breeches and plays a bagpipes, he stands with one foot on a wooden board and two garters around one leg, a curled up dog, to one side and a child with a raised arm, seated on an irregularly scroll moulded base applied with flowers and leaves.

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Circa 1755.

Height: 8 ins. (20 cms.)

Width: 6 ins. (15 cms.)

Provenance: Private English Collection.

A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

Cyril Cook, ‘The Life and Work of Robert Hancock’, no. 23.

H.W.Hughes: Authorship of some designs on Porcelain and Enamel and Robert Hancock’s Connection with Battersea and Bow, ECC Trans. Vol. 1, no.3. Pl. XL. Also for a circular saucer dish with similar decoration see Anton Gabszewicz and Geoffrey Freeman, Bow Porcelain the Collection formed by Geoffrey Freeman. No. 120. Taken from engravings published

by Pierce Tempest between 1690 and 1711 after Francis Barlow, Various Birds and Beasts drawn from Life.

A rare Bow Printed Canted Octagonal Dessert Plate of the Small Size, printed after Robert Hancock in pale puce sepia with a central scene of a cockerel and two hens together with four chicks, within an Arcadian landscape, trees to one side, mountains beyond and birds in flight overhead, the border with a further three additional prints, two with pheasants and another with chickens, brown line rim.

Circa 1756-58.

Diameter: 7 ¼ ins. (18.5 cms.)

Provenance: Private English Collection.

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A very rare Bow Fluted Circular Plate of attractive small size, beautifully painted with a chinese lady holding a fan and seated upon a holed sea green rock, the fluted border with individual panels of iron red floral scrols, underglaze blue stylised lotus flowers, groups of precious objects in the famille verte palette and power blue panels gilt with riverscenes. The underside with two meandering floral sprays.

Circa 1758.

7 ins. (18 cms.)

Provenance: Private English Collection.

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

A very rare Chelsea Asparagus Box and Cover, the elegantly slip cast form moulded as a bunch of pale cut asparagus tips, cut ends and side shoots tinged with puce carmine and very pale green, tied over the top with brown painted raffia, the cover with rising sprigs of asparagus being half of the bunch.

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Circa 1755.

Length: 7 ins. (18 cms.)

Red anchor mark and numeral 13 to the interior of the cover.

Provenance: Private English Collection.

A Chelsea Fluted Oval Dish of elegant small size, beautifully painted with cloud shaped reserves containing panels of figures at conversation before lakes within an Arcadian landscape with architectural ruins and trees, with birds in flight overhead, framed with twin purple and iron red lines, surrounded with butterflies and sprays of colourful European flowers, brown line rim.

Circa 1755.

Diameter: 6 ½ ins. (16 cms.)

Provenance: Private English Collection.

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

An extremely rare Chelsea Melon Box of Small Size, beautifully naturalistically modelled and painted in tones of yellow and green with puce detailing of the veinwork, the cover applied with a snail finial.

Circa 1754-55.

Length: 3 ½ ins. (9 cms.), Height: 3 ½ ins. (9 cms.)

Marks: Small Red Anchor to the inside cover.

A single example from the Mr. and Mrs Sigmund Katz collection illustrated, Dr. F. Severne Mackenna, Chelsea Porcelain The Red Anchor Wares, pl. 31, no. 63. Museum of Fine Arts Boston. The form is mentioned in the 1755 sale catalogue for sets of small melons and covers.

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A Chelsea Botanical Hans Sloane Dessert Plate, the deep press moulded circular shape with lobed edge, beautifully decorated with an orange flowering herbaceous plant, bearing broad green leaves, a single white dianthus flower to one side and a mayfly and blue butterfly to the other, brown line rim.

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Circa 1755. small red anchor mark to the underside.

Provenance: Private English Collection.

A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

A very rare Chelsea Hans Sloane Botanical Dessert Plate of the Smallest Size, the circular press moulded form with lobed edge, beautifully decorated with a purple flowering herbaceous flower with broad leaves and thorny stem, a smaller sprig of orange flowered hairbell to one side and a butterfly in flight, brown line rim.

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Circa 1752-55.

Diameter: 8 ins. (20.5 cms.)

Small red anchor mark to the underside.

Provenance: Private English Collection.

A rare Chelsea Lettuce Box and Cover, of oval shape moulded as a lettuce in two parts the green leaves with puce veining, the domed cover with a turned leaf forming the finial.

Circa 1754/55.

Length: 5 ½ ins. (14 cms.)

Red anchor marks.

First days sale 1755, Mr. Ford in his Great Room at the Haymarket, Monday 10th March lots 21 and 34 as ‘Two small fig leaves and two cabbage lettices for a desart.’

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

The two pieces of dated Bow porcelain relating to this piece are the ‘John and Elizabeth Roberts’ Bowl dated 1761, see Yvonne Hackenbroch Chelsea and other English Porcelain in the Irwin Untermeyer Collection. Also Bow Porcelain from the Geoffrey Freeman Ciollection, no. 154 for the dated and inscribed bowl ‘Mr. John Chapman 1762’. Both bearing related botanical decoration.

A rare Bow Canted Octagonal Botanical Plate, beautifully decorated with a very large spray of Pink Lavateria, with scattered butterflies and insects and a caterpillar, with brown line rim.

Circa 1758-60.

Diameter: 9 ½ ins. (24 cms.)

Provenance: Private English Collection.

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Bibliography Elizabeth Adams, Chelsea Porcelain (2001) David Beevers, Chinese Whispers, Chinoiserie in Britain (1650-1930) Abraham L. den Blaauwen, Meissen Porcelain in The Rijksmuseum (2000) Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, The Arnhold Collection of Meissen Porcelain 1710-1750 Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, Fragile Diplomacy, Meissen Porcelain for the European Courts c. 1710-1763 Anton Gabszewicz and Geoffrey Freeman, Bow Porcelain, The Collection formed by Geoffrey Freeman (1982) Anton Gabszewicz, Made in New Canton, Bow Porcelain from The Collection of the London Borough of Newham (2000) Joanna Gwilt, Vincennes and Early Sevres Porcelain from the Belvedere Collection (2014) Dr. Yvonne Hackenbroch, Chelsea and other English Porcelain, Pottery and Enamels in Irwin Untermeyer Collection (1957) Jean Pillement, The Ladies Amusement, the 1959 facsimile copy of the original 1759 Publication Dr. F. Severne Mackenna, Chelsea Porcelain, Triangle & Raised Anchor Wares (1951) Dr. F. Severne Mackenna, Chelsea Porcelain, The Red Anchor Wares (1951) Frank Stoner, Chelsea, Bow and Derby Porcelain Figures Rosalie Wise Sharp, Ceramics, Ethics & Scandal (2002) Raymond Yarbrough, Bow Porcelain and the London Theatre (1996)

Acknowledgements We would like to thank the following for their help and encouragement: Anton Gabszewicz, Roger Massey and a ‘Good Friend’ who wishes to remain anonymous.

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A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF CHELSEA AND OTHER EARLY ENGLISH PORCELAIN

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15 Duke Street St James’s London SW1Y 6DB Tel: +44 (0)20 7 389 6550 Fax: +44 (0)207 389 6556 www.haughton.com gallery@haughton.com

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