Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
Anton Gabszewicz Collection
Lot 143
An interesting, early Bow 'mushroom-glazed' sauceboat, circa 1746-48
19 November 2025, 10:30 GMT
London, Knightsbridge£1,500 - £2,000
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Fergus Gambon
Director
Jim Peake
Head of Department
An interesting, early Bow 'mushroom-glazed' sauceboat, circa 1746-48
Of flat-bottomed hexagonal form, the flared sides with low-relief foliate moulding and applied with trailing prunus branches painted in vibrant polychrome enamels, the interior painted with further flowering prunus and trailing sprigs, 13.3cm long
Footnotes
Provenance
Margaret Cadman Collection, Christie's, 11 October 2002, lot 41
Anton Gabszewicz Collection
Literature
Ross Ramsay and Anton Gabszewicz, 'The Chemistry of 'A'-Marked Porcelain and its relation to the Heylyn and Frye Patent of 1744', ECC Trans, Vol.18, Pt.2 (2003), fig.11 and pl.VII.
Nicholas Panes, British Porcelain Sauceboats of the 18th Century (2009), p.65, fig.92.
Ramsay and Gabszewicz draw comparisons between this sauceboat and a fluted cup attributed to the 'A'-Marked group in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. no.C.20-1969). The handles are of identical form and although the cup is left in the white both are applied with trailing prunus. However, on close inspection the modelling of the applied prunus is distinctly more naïve on the present lot. Each flowerhead is of rudimentary hexagonal shape and the leaves and petals sit in clusters quite proud from the surface of the sauceboat in contrast to the cup. The thickly applied enamels on the sauceboat, drab-coloured body and blue-tinted glaze links this to a small number of comparable early Bow pieces in this sale, see lots 122, 123, 124, 144 and 145.