Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
Lot 184
An unusual Bow basket, circa 1753-55
19 November 2025, 10:30 GMT
London, Knightsbridge£700 - £1,000
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Fergus Gambon
Director
Jim Peake
Head of Department
An unusual Bow basket, circa 1753-55
Of impressive size, the flared sides pierced in a lattice pattern, painted in a pale kakiemon palette with large flying insects caught in the gaze of two birds perched on prunus and chrysanthemum branches by flowering bamboo and banded hedges, 28cm diam
Footnotes
Provenance
Anton Gabszewicz Collection
Judy and Phelps Bell Collection
It is rare to find a Bow basket of this large scale. The delicate colour palette is also atypical. Although it features no underglaze blue, this might be compared with the decoration on the square dish painted with a hen and cockerel in the Elizabeth Adams Collection, sold by Bonhams on 19 June 2024, lot 295. As with the smaller basket painted by James Welsh, the pierced sides of Bow baskets in the 1750s are not entirely uniform, a charming idiosyncrasy when compared with the perhaps more technically accomplished Worcester circular baskets of this period.