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.

Lot 134*

A rare Worcester coffee can, circa 1753-54

23 June 2021, 10:30 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £956.25 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 Worcester coffee can, circa 1753-54

Of small size with fine moulded reeding and a seven-lobed rim, the scrolled handle with thumbrest, delicately painted in famille rose with a slender Chinese figure standing in a formal garden, his arms raised and holding a sword and a trailing flower sprig, the reverse with various flowers and rockwork, 5.3cm high

Footnotes

Provenance
Watney Collection, Phillips sale, 1 November 2000, lot 923
Simon Spero exhibition 2001, no.26
John Alchin Collection

Thinly potted and of small size, these little cans do not have saucers and mostly occur with relatively simple floral-sprig decoration, presumably because of the difficulty of painting on the ribbed surface. Only a small number are recorded with more elaborate figure decoration, where a particularly vivid and varied palette has been used. See also another ribbed cup from the Watney Collection, Phillips sale 10 May 2000, lot 554 which was painted with flowering prunus. The shape conforms to the 'ribb'd' cans listed in the London Warehouse price list circa 1755-56. A similar example from the John Alchin Collection was sold by Bonhams on 15 December 2020, lot 7.

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