Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
Lot 106
An important 'mushroom-glazed' Bow shell salt, circa 1746-48
1 December 2025, 13:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£2,000 - £4,000
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Jim Peake
Head of Department
Fergus Gambon
Director
An important 'mushroom-glazed' Bow shell salt, circa 1746-48
The finely modelled fluted shell painted in famille rose style to the centre with trailing flowering plants, with a brown exterior, supported by a scaly dolphin with a gaping mouth gushing water, set on an elaborate pierced rockwork base applied with leaves, all picked out in shades of puce, green, blue and brown, 13.6cm wide
Footnotes
Provenance
With E & H Manners, 2021
Literature
White, Mary, Eating at the Whites' House, Vol.3, 2022, p.301
The typical greyish 'drab' or 'mushroom' glaze characteristic of this rare class of Bow, places it among the earliest products of the new factory, or 'New Canton', on the Essex side of Bow Bridge. There are clear links between the decoration on this distinctive class of wares and that on 'A'-marked porcelain, see 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, No.2, 2003, pp.269-74. Interestingly, the muted famille rose palette employed is reminiscent of enamelling found on some early coloured Limehouse wares of similar date, see Bernard Watney, 'Limehouse Coloured Ware', ECC Trans, Vol.15, Pt.1, 1993, and the sauceboat from the Watney Collection sold by Bonhams on 19 June 2024, lot 269, suggesting that the same London decorators may have been responsible.
The ambitious form of this model undoubtedly has its origins in silver, and is evocative of Chelsea examples by Nicholas Sprimont. Similar dolphins can be found on silver pieces from the Marine Service made in the early 1740s, including a magnificent centrepiece and pair of sauceboats now in the Royal Collection, discussed by Sally Kevill-Davies, 'Some new connections between Nicholas Sprimont's silver and early Chelsea porcelain', ECC Trans, Vol.31, 2020, pp.107-9, figs.2 and 3. Two related early Chelsea salts with dolphin supports are illustrated and discussed on p.109, figs.4 and 5. Compare also to the pair of Chelsea shell salts sold by Sotheby's in New York on 10 November 2006, lot 716. A very similar Bow salt or sweetmeat is illustrated by Anton Gabszewicz and Geoffrey Freeman, Bow Porcelain, 1982, p.24, no.36, the pair to which is in the British Museum (inv. no.1966,0201.1). Another from the Delhom Collection is in The Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina (inv. no.1986.4.15), and an example left in the white from the Richard C Paine Collection is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (inv. no.30.366).