Fergus Gambon
Director
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Lot 98
An important Lund's Bristol coffee cup, circa 1750
15 December 2020, 14:30 GMT
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £3,570 inc. premium
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Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
An important Lund's Bristol coffee cup, circa 1750
Of unusually wide plain U shape, the distinctively formed handle with a small double scroll close to the upper terminal, enamelled in a palette of pink, yellow, green and lilac with a flower spray, two smaller sprigs to the reverse, 5.1cm high
Footnotes
Provenance
Mrs D MacCallum Collection
This distinctive form of handle only occurs on Lund's Bristol and is found on both straight sided cups and coffee cups. A coffee cup of the same shape painted in blue with the 'Union Jack House' pattern was sold by Phillips on 14 September 1994, lot 160 and another by Bonhams on 3 March 2004, lot 79. Both are recorded by Ray Jones, The Origins of Worcester Porcelain (2018), p.410 and described as incredibly rare.
Only a very small number of pieces of Lund's Bristol pieces are recorded with enamelled decoration, the only marked examples being a group of high-footed sauceboats moulded with swags and with embossed 'Bristoll' marks. Dr Richard Pococke noted on visiting the Bristol china works in 1750 that '...they make very beautiful white sauceboats, adorned with reliefs of festoons, which sell for sixteen shillings a pair'. A small number of surviving white examples are recorded and the enamelled versions are likely to have been some of these, independently decorated in London at the time. The enamelling is of two types, one group with enamels highlighting the moulded detail, the other painted more simply with scattered sprigs in a similar manner to the present lot. Both types are illustrated by Jones (2018), pp.339-340. Unlike the sauceboats, Lund's Bristol cups are not recorded in the white and it seems most unlikely that undecorated examples would have been offered for general sale. The present lot was probably supplied by Lund's direct to the London decorator only by special agreement.