Skip to main content

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

A rare Bow figure group of the 'Fortune Teller', circa 1752 image 1
A rare Bow figure group of the 'Fortune Teller', circa 1752 image 2
Lot 120

A rare Bow figure group of the 'Fortune Teller', circa 1752

23 June 2021, 10:30 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £14,000 inc. premium

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our British Ceramics specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

Ask about this lot

A rare Bow figure group of the 'Fortune Teller', circa 1752

By the 'Muses Modeller', a lady holding out her right hand for examination by a bearded palmist, a staff in her left hand, wearing a pale yellow coat lined in puce, white apron and a dress painted with sprays of flowers, the palmist wearing a pale pink washed long-sleeved coat edged in puce and lined in pale yellow, his iron-red boots enriched with gilding, a manuscript on the ground between them, on a shaped rocky base, 18cm high

Footnotes

Provenance
Rous Lench Collection, Sotheby's sale, 1 July 1986, lot 188
With Winifred Williams
Christie's sale, 18 May 1992, lot 38
Distinguished Private Collection

Exhibited
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

This group is after a painting by François Boucher for a Beauvais tapestry in the 'Fêtes de Village à l'Italiennes' series, more widely known from a print titled 'La Bonne Aventure' by Pierre-Alexandre Aveline which first appeared in the Mercure de France in April 1738. The figure may have been inspired by the original painting or a copy of it, as it does not appear in reverse like the print, see Elizabeth Adams and David Redstone, Bow Porcelain (1981), p.144. Coloured and white examples of the Fortune Teller were produced at Bow and all are the work of the 'Muses Modeller', whose characteristics are unmistakable. A similar figure sold by Bonhams on 25 March 1977, lot 73 is illustrated by Anton Gabszewicz and Geoffrey Freeman, Bow Porcelain (1982), p.127, no.196. Another is illustrated by Anton Gabszewicz, Made at New Canton (2000), p.89, no.76. See also the example in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (acc. no. MFA61.1282) illustrated by George Savage, 18th Century English Porcelain, pl.44. An example left in the white is illustrated by Adams and Redstone (1981), p.145, pl.70.

Additional information

Bid now on these items

A London delftware 'Bleu Persan' mug, circa 1680-1700

An assembled Holkham Pottery white and gilt decorated tea and breakfast serviceThird quarter 20th century

A Wrotham slipware tyg by George Richardson, dated 1648

A London delftware fuddling cup, circa 1630-50

An English delftware barber's bowl, circa 1700-20

A rare English delftware bird feeder, dated 1751

An English delftware teapot and cover, circa 1750

A rare Elers Brothers redware mug, circa 1695

A Staffordshire solid agate teapot and cover, circa 1750

A Staffordshire white saltglaze teapot and cover, circa 1750

A rare Staffordshire white saltglaze teapot and cover, circa 1750

A Yorkshire pearlware frog mug from the 'Portrait Group', dated 1781

A Staffordshire creamware cauliflower coffee pot and a cover, circa 1760-80

A Chelsea figure group of the Tyrolean Dancers, circa 1756

An exceptional St James's (Charles Gouyn) white figure group of Europa and the Bull, circa 1750-52

A good Vauxhall group of Hercules and the Nemean lion, circa 1756-58

A Plymouth model of a lion, circa 1768-70