Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
Lot 107
A Chelsea crayfish salt, circa 1755
1 December 2025, 13:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£1,500 - £2,500
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Jim Peake
Head of Department
Fergus Gambon
Director
A Chelsea crayfish salt, circa 1755
Realistically modelled and coloured, the black crayfish crawling before a large open clam shell forming the salt, left in the white with painting inside to simulate weed, all on white rockwork encrusted with a variety of shells, weed and coral picked out in naturalistic colours, 12.5cm wide, 7.4cm high, red anchor mark
Footnotes
This is one of the few models in early Chelsea porcelain with a direct parallel in silver by Nicholas Sprimont. A celebrated pair of silver gilt crayfish salts with hallmarks for 1742/43, now in the Royal Collection (inv. no.RCIN 51393), formed part of a suite of silver known as the 'Marine Service' made for Frederick, Prince of Wales. These are illustrated and discussed by Sally Kevill-Davies, 'Some new connections between Nicholas Sprimont's silver and early Chelsea porcelain', ECC Trans, Vol.31, 2020, pp.109-10, fig.8, alongside a similar coloured Chelsea example in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. no.C.73-1938), fig.9. The original source print for the silver versions, an engraving after J-A Meissonnier from Livre de Legumes by Jacques Chéreau, fol.72, pl.15, published after 1734, is reproduced on p.110, fig.7.
Sprimont subsequently transformed these models into porcelain at Chelsea during the Triangle period, but these were mostly left in the white. The model was reissued several years later during the Red Anchor period, with six pairs of 'crawfish salts' listed in the 1756 Chelsea sale catalogue. An enamelled Red Anchor period example is listed alongside a white Triangle period example by Elizabeth Adams, Chelsea Porcelain, 2001, p.26, fig.3.2. In both instances, the crayfish were modelled from life. Whilst the style of painting in the present lot is reminiscent of that used during the Triangle period, the colour of the crayfish was changed to a more lifelike brown or black during the Red Anchor period. Enamelled Triangle period crayfish were typically painted in red, see the pair sold by Bonhams on 13 December 2006, lot 144.