Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
Lot 126
A very rare Limehouse leaf pickle dish, circa 1746-48
1 December 2025, 13:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£2,000 - £3,000
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Jim Peake
Head of Department
Fergus Gambon
Director
A very rare Limehouse leaf pickle dish, circa 1746-48
Of leaf shape, the underside moulded in relief with crisp veining and applied with five crescent-shaped feet, the upper surface with impressed veins, painted in blue with four insects in flight, 11.8cm long
Footnotes
Provenance
Watney Collection, Phillips, 10 May 2000, lot 536
Pinewood Collection, Bonhams, 31 October, 2001, lot 27
Simon Spero exhibition, 2006, no.30
With Simon Spero, 2012
Literature
Jones, Ray, The Origins of Worcester Porcelain, 2018, p.244
White, Mary, Beasts at the Whites' House, Vol.1, 2020, p.246
Exhibited
ECC, Limehouse Ware Revealed, 1993, p.52, col. pl.VIII and p.63, figs.128 and 130
This pickle dish is compared with similar earthenware wasters from the Pomona Potworks in Newcastle-under-Lyme in the ECC's Limehouse Ware Revealed, 1993, p.63, figs.128 and 130. Similarities in the style of insect painting on both earthenware and porcelain wasters from the Limehouse factory site are also evident, see p.62, fig.126, although Simon Spero notes in his 2006 catalogue that decoration consisting only of insects in underglaze blue would appear to be without precedent in early English porcelain except in overglaze printed decoration at Worcester in the late 1750s. The Limehouse and Pomona examples share the unusual feature of relief-moulded veining to the underside and impressed moulding to the upper surface, and the links between the two factories are discussed by Bernard Watney in Chapter 6. The crispness of the veining, particularly on the underside, strongly suggests that a real leaf was used to create the mould for these pickle dishes. Whilst the understated decoration is charming, the misfired glaze to the rim and underside demonstrate the firing difficulties that plagued Limehouse porcelain and contributed to the ultimate downfall of the factory.