Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
Anton Gabszewicz Collection
Lot 135
A rare Bow salt, circa 1752-55
19 November 2025, 10:30 GMT
London, Knightsbridge£700 - £1,000
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Fergus Gambon
Director
Jim Peake
Head of Department
A rare Bow salt, circa 1752-55
Of low circular form, raised on three paw feet with human masks at the terminals, three 'double' prunus sprigs applied below the turned rim, left in the white, 4.3cm high, 7.5cm wide
Footnotes
Provenance
Anton Gabszewicz Collection
A very similar example with the same distinctive 'double' prunus sprigs is illustrated by Anton Gabszewicz & Geoffrey Freeman, Bow Porcelain (1982), p.44, fig.43. Elizabeth Adams and David Redstone refer to this variation as rose applied decoration rather than prunus, see figs.32 and 39 in Bow Porcelain (1981). However, a corresponding mould excavated on the factory site is also illustrated and described as prunus and not rose, see fig.36.
This form of 'cauldron' salt was popular in contemporary silver, raised on three or four paw feet with lion or human mask terminals. A small number of Limehouse salts of a similar form are recorded, see the coloured example from the Watney Collection sold by Bonhams on 19 June 2024, lot 268. The modeller John Toulouse may have taken the idea for this shape to Worcester from Bow.