Bonhams 1793 : "ARCTIC SCENERY" TUREEN BASE The earthenware tureen base, with wasted edges, blue transfer decoration of wild flowers alternating with wild animals in panels around the rim, a scene of Inuits building an igloo and being watched by an armed European to the centre, "ARCTIC SCENERY 9" igloo motif transfer on base, [c.1840]

An earthenware tureen base, with wasted edges, blue transfer decoration of wild flowers alternating with wild animals in panels around the rim, a scene of Inuits building an igloo and being watched by an armed European to the centre, "ARCTIC SCENERY 9" igloo motif transfer on base, 265 x 370mm., [c.1840]

Estimate:

£500 - 700
€580 - 820
US$ 750 - 1,100

Footnotes

The central designs for many pieces in the "Arctic Scenery" series are loosely based on illustrations from William Parry's Journals of his first (1821) and second (1824) expeditions to discover the North West Passage. The scenes are composites taken from a number of the engraved illustrations. Pieces were issued in blue, the most common colour, green, brown and, allegedly, pink. The incongruous borders of tropical flowers, and often exotic animals, on the rim on many pieces (as evidenced here) are borrowed from Jardine's Naturalist's Library series (circa 1833-43). See illustration on preceding page.

Literature: Elizabeth Collard, The Potters' View of Canada: Canadian Scenes on Nineteenth-Century Earthenware. McGill Queen's University Press, 1983.

Category: Books / Books, Maps and Manuscripts

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