John Sandon
Consultant
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Lot 295
An important brown stoneware jug by Robert Brettingham De Carle, dated 1781
18 May 2016, 10:30 BST
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £3,500 inc. premium
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Fergus Gambon
Director
Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
An important brown stoneware jug by Robert Brettingham De Carle, dated 1781
Thrown in the form of a barrel with turned bands and incised vertical lines simulating barrel staves, the nail holes, cork bung and canvas tightener also represented, the handle realistically modelled as a stalk attached to the body by straps at the terminals, the lower strap incised in tiny dots to read 'R.B.DeCarle fec', the decoration modelled by hand in high relief and fine detail, a winged cherub below the spout flanked by fruiting vines and hops, a church on one side and a cottage on the other, cornucopias containing fruit and flowers below, a cartouche formed by drapery just above the foot flanked by ears of wheat and inscribed 'John Samuel Clack/ born Jan 16th/ 1781', 25cm high (damaged)
Footnotes
Provenance:
Jeffery Whitehead. Illustrated in Volume 3 of the Connoisseur magazine of 1902, p. 269, where the jug is described as being bought at auction in Great Yarmouth in 1855 and on display at the South Kensington Museum for many years.
Robert Brettingham De Carle came from a family of masons and sculptors from East Anglia. He is also thought to have worked for Mrs Coade's artificial stone factory at Lambeth. Only a small number of his wares are recorded, characterised by high quality modelling in high relief, turning utilitarian brown stoneware into a luxury product. The earliest recorded example is a harvest jug of different form inscribed 'R B De Carle/ Inv T & Fecit/ London/ 1775' and bearing the names 'Anne Davy' and 'Yoxford', a village in east Suffolk. See Sampson and Horne Exhibition Catalogue 2009, p.30. This lot is one of three recorded jugs of the same basic form. One in the Victoria and Albert Museum lacks the cottage and church vignettes and is illustrated by Robin Hildyard, Browne Muggs (1985), pp 46-47. It was made for the botanist James Sowerby, believed to have been married to De Carle's sister. The other in the Hampshire County Museum is illustrated by Oswald, Hildyard and Hughes, English Brown Stoneware (1982), p.59 and was made for another botanist, William Curtis. This also lacks the vignettes and has a different spout, said to be a caricature of Greaves, the colourist. It is also dated 1781 and is accompanied by a matching goblet. Both Sowerby and Curtis had a major influence on British pottery and porcelain decoration in the late 18th and early 19th century, their botanical prints used as a source by many makers. Presumably, De Carle knew them both, his East Anglian origins and his association with leading botanists of the time being sources for his business.