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An important Limehouse covered punch bowl, circa 1746-48
Sold for £34,800 inc. premium
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Find your local specialistAn important Limehouse covered punch bowl, circa 1746-48
Footnotes
Provenance: purchased from Mercury Antiques (Mrs Richards). Illustrated by Geoffrey Godden, English Blue and White Porcelain (2004), colour pls. 21 and 22 and pls. 104-105. Three other examples are recorded, each apparently painted by the same hand. One is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (C260-1938) and is illustrated by Geoffrey Godden (op cit 2004) pls. 102-103. Another is in the Watney Collection, illustrated on the front and back cover of the ECC Transactions, Vol. 17, Part 1 (1999) as a tribute to Bernard Watney. The final example, lacking its cover, is in Liverpool Museum. The distinctive style of painting represented by these punch bowls is Continental rather than English. The placing of vine leaves and grapes in all of the available spaces on this piece strongly suggest that these bowls were for serving mulled wine or punch. The delightfully constructed rivets are clearly very early and may well be contemporary with the bowl itself, as they secure cracks that extend from an original firing crack. It is also possible this bowl cracked when used with hot mulled wine.
