Jim Peake
Head of Department
Lot 44
A very rare Beilby enamelled opaque twist wine glass with a wildfowling scene, circa 1765
19 November 2025, 10:30 GMT
London, Knightsbridge£6,000 - £9,000
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A very rare Beilby enamelled opaque twist wine glass with a wildfowling scene, circa 1765
The ogee bowl finely painted in opaque white with a sportsman standing with his legs astride, wearing a smart frock coat and peaked cap, aiming his gun at a flock of birds startled by his dog, all before flowering plants, trees and a wooden fence, on a double-series stem with a pair of heavy opaque white spiral threads outside a spiral gauze, over a conical foot, 13.6cm high
Footnotes
Provenance
Frances L Dickson Collection
Sir Hugh and Lady Dawson Collection, Christie's, 14 June 1983, lot 101
With Maureen Thompson, June 1985
Literature
W A Thorpe, A History of English and Irish Glass (1929), pl.CXXXII, fig.2, no.5
Delomosne and Son, Gilding the Lily (1978), no.75
R J Charleston, English Glass (1984), pl.41(f)
L M Bickerton, Eighteenth Century English Drinking Glasses (1986), p.332, no.1080 and dustjacket
Exhibited
'Circle of Glass Collectors Commemorative Exhibition 1937-1962', Victoria and Albert Museum, 1962, no.205
'English Glass', Victoria and Albert Museum, 1962, no.205
Wildfowling scenes such as this were a popular theme on Beilby enamelled glasses and several glasses painted with similar scenes are recorded, each showing a single figure shooting game birds in flight but with slight variations. These are discussed by Simon Cottle, 'The Success to R Brown 1768 Tumbler and Comparative Beilby Enameled Glass of the Eighteenth Century', Journal of Glass Studies, Vol.66 (2025), pp.179-81. An example with a related wildfowling scene from the Julius and Ann Kaplan Collection was sold by Bonhams on 15 November 2017, lot 25. Another from the A C Hubbard Jr Collection illustrated by Ward Lloyd, A Wine Lover's Glasses (2000), p.72, pl.89. A further two celebrated wine glasses both painted with matching wildfowling scenes are recorded. One is illustrated by L M Bickerton, Eighteenth Century English Drinking Glasses (1986), p.332, no.1079 and was sold by Sotheby's on 1 November 1982, lot 38. It is now in the Laing Art Gallery (inv. no.F6317). The other was in the collections of both Hamilton Clements and Henry Brown and is illustrated by Francis Buckley, A History of Old English Glass (1925), pl.XXXV. It was most recently sold by Bonhams as part of the Darell Thompson-Schwab Collection on 30 November 2022, lot 139.
The scene relates closely to two dated Beilby enamelled vessels painted in white with wildfowling scenes. One is a tumbler inscribed 'Success to R Brown 1768', illustrated by Roger Dodsworth, The Durrington Collection (2006), p.36, no.32 and sold by Bonhams as part of the Durrington Collection on 15 November 2023, lot 49. The other is a clear glass flask inscribed 'Thomas Brown, Nenthead, 1769' in the Ashmolean Museum (inv. no.WA1957.24.2.181), illustrated by James Rush, A Beilby Odyssey (1987), p.69, pl.29. Compare also to the earlier South Staffordshire polychrome enamelled opaque white flask depicting a similar scene, possibly by William Beilby working for John Haseldine, sold by Bonhams as part of the Kaplan Collection on 15 November 2017, lot 39.