Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
Lot 105
An early Chelsea strawberry dish or salt, circa 1745-49
1 December 2025, 13:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£4,000 - £6,000
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Jim Peake
Head of Department
Fergus Gambon
Director
An early Chelsea strawberry dish or salt, circa 1745-49
The oval, shell-shaped dish raised on a similarly fluted spreading base, the interior painted in famille rose style with a spray of peonies surrounded by florets and insects, including a brightly coloured butterfly and a moth, the exterior with numerous small flowers and insects including beetles and a caterpillar, a further winged insect disguising an imperfection to the underside, 13cm wide, incised triangle mark
Footnotes
Provenance
Joseph Handley Collection
Simon Spero exhibition, 2008, no.5
Literature
White, Mary, Beasts at the Whites' House, Vol.1, 2020, p.242
Dishes of this form are traditionally known as strawberry dishes because the bases are often applied with a band of strawberries, see for example that illustrated by Elizabeth Adams, Chelsea Porcelain, 2001, p.27, figs.3.3 and 3.4, which was sold by Bonhams as part of the Elizabeth Adams Collection on 19 June 2024, lot 298. Nicolas Sprimont employed shells in his rococo designs for both silver and porcelain, and this shape certainly recalls contemporary upturned-shell salts or sweetmeat dishes made in silver. See also Sally Kevill-Davies, 'Some new connections between Nicholas Sprimont's silver and early Chelsea porcelain', ECC Trans, Vol.31, 2020, p.122 and fig.34, where a similar example applied with strawberries and left in the white is discussed in relation to contemporary silver. In his 2008 catalogue, Simon Spero notes how it is most unusual to find decoration in oriental style on this form, especially in famille rose style, as this was rarely employed during the Triangle period.
These dishes may have been intended to accompany jugs applied with strawberries in a similar manner, perhaps to serve wild strawberries and cream, see lot 104 in this sale. A very similar dish at Colonial Williamsburg is illustrated by John C Austin, Chelsea Porcelain at Williamsburg, 1977, p.31, no.12, where the author suggests that it may have been used for sweetmeats. Two further similar examples are in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. nos.C.171-1940 and C.172-1940), where they are descried as salt-cellars. It is interesting to note the close similarities between the decoration on this dish and the 'A'-marked cup in this sale, lot 70, which may be by the same hand.