The globular teapot with existing underglaze blue mountain
riverscape
later painted in London with bright enamels and gilt,
adding a merchant
in a scarlet coat brandishing a sword,
and a barrel resting on green
grass before tall towers (or sentry) and flowering trees;
the reverse with two
red-coated gentlemen in a sampan among gilt rocks,
before an
island with docks(?), a flowering trees, a gilt pagoda and a tower,
all beneath purple clouds; the cover decorated en suite;
label verso for Helen Espir, no. 663
*“Limehouse Class”
:
These particular patterns with figures
of merchants and buildings are reputedly copied from Meissen
originals.
For further discussion see Bernard Watney, Limehouse
Coloured Ware,
ECC (English Ceramics Circle) Transactions, Vol. 15, Pl. 1
Cf. Stephen Hanscombe, The Early James
Giles and his Contemporary London Decorators, Pl. 21 for a similar
teapot.
The same pattern is known on Limehouse porcelain
(see below)
Provenance: Helen Espir Collection,
no. 663. Purchased from Sotheby's, 18th June 1998, lot 2034;
A similar teabowl and saucer is
pictured in European
Decoration on Oriental Porcelain,
Helen Espir, p. 224, Pl. 26,
the saucer in the collection of David
Battie
Condition : Excellent ; a single minor nick to the underside of the
lid, as shown below;
expected rubbing to some of the gilt, most in remarkably good
condition
5” High x 7” Wide (spout to handle)
SOLD
#6795
Please Inquire
In Phillips Watney sale of
September 1999, an English Limehouse sauceboat is illustrated (Lot 130 - above),
"painted on one side with a
castle by a river, a barrel in the foreground,
and a man in sixteenth
century European costume to the left...".
The gentleman's jacket is
scarlet
-
now a "reference" for the "Limehouse class"
of London-painted Chinese porcelains.
In the lot notes, Watney suggests another interesting
dimension to this type of decoration :
the likelihood of
the painting on white (English) Limehouse porcelain actually being
executed in Holland,
and the Dutch painters
then settling in London, where they continued to paint Chinese
porcelains.
This same sauceboat is
illustrated in European Decoration on Oriental Porcelain, Espir,
p. 223,
with additional dating to
this type of scene :
"This scene appears to
derive from the Meissen harbour scenes of the 1720-30s that were
developed
on Chinese export wares
in the1730-40s and had become stylized on England by 1746.