Sweetmeat dish: EC.17-1941

Maker(s)

Factory: Chelsea Porcelain Manufactory

Entities

• Sweetmeat dish

Categories

• Soft-paste porcelain

Description

Soft-paste porcelain sweetmeat dish, moulded, glazed and decorated with flowers and insects in polychrome onglaze enamels.

Soft-paste porcelain sweetmeat dish, moulded, and painted in green, yellow, pink, blue, turquoise, and black enamels. The bowl is formed as a deep, oval, fluted shell resting on a splayed and fluted base. The interior is painted with two moths and a beetle, and a peony spray in Chinese famille-rose style. The exterior is painted with scattered insects and flower sprays

Notes

History note: Dr Bellamy Gardner; sold Sotheby's, 12 June 1941, Catalogue of the celebrated collection of Chelsea Porcelain, English Ceramics, and Enamels. The Property of Dr and Mrs Bellamy Gardner, lot 22.

Legal notes

Given by the National Art Collections Fund as Trustee of the R.S.Cochrane Fund

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Given (1941-06-12) by National Art Collections Fund

Dating

18th Century, Mid
George II
Triangle Period
Circa 1745 - Circa 1749

Note

Simon Spero (see Documentation 1995) notes that both famille-rose and botanical painting is found on these dishes, which almost certainly derive from a silver prototype, and that some appear to have been painted by an outside decorator. The speckling on the underside of this piece may indicate that it is an example decorated outside the factory.

The spot of underglaze blue on the base indicates that the piece was made in a factory where blue and white was also produced. These are extremely rare at all periods of Chelsea porcelain (see Documentation, Adams 2001 and and Legge 1984).

School or Style

Rococo