Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
Lot 13
An English delftware barber's bowl, circa 1700-20
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 English delftware barber's bowl, circa 1700-20
London or Bristol, of circular shape, the wide rim with the conventional cut-out to accommodate the neck of the customer and a circular depression to hold a ball of soap, painted in blue with a plethora of utensils and tools of the trade including soap, scissors, lancets, razors, a comb, rollers, wigs, wig stands and a mirror with an intricate frame, pierced for suspension, 26cm diam
Footnotes
Provenance
John Warrell Collection
With Jonathan Horne
Longridge Collection, Christie's New York, 24 January 2011, lot 109
Literature
Grigsby, Leslie B, The Longridge Collection of English Slipware and Delftware, Vol.2, 2000, p.461, D412
White, Mary, Living at the Whites' House, Vol.4, 2023, p.2
The 1699 inventory at Pickleherring Quay pottery in Southwark lists 583 barber basins, or 'basons'. The present lot belongs to a group of borderless examples but is exceptional for the range of barber's implements depicted, in particular the pair of wigs, showing differing angles at the centre of the bowl and two wig stands. At this time barbers would still have had need of lancets for blood-letting and other minor surgeries. The Fellowship of Surgeons and the Barbers' Company had merged in 1540 but the two trades were formally separated in 1745.
As an object, the barber's bowl is a wonderfully tactile item, the urge to pick up the basin and hold it to your neck like patrons past almost irresistible.
A paper label to the reverse of the present lot describes how it was used in a Colchester barber shop and passed down through the family.