Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
Lot 130
An early Longton Hall teapot and cover, circa 1753-54
1 December 2025, 13:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£1,200 - £1,800
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Jim Peake
Head of Department
Fergus Gambon
Director
An early Longton Hall teapot and cover, circa 1753-54
Of bullet shape, applied with a wishbone or tau handle with leaf moulding and a bird's head spout, the inset cover with fruiting flower finial, enamelled in vibrant enamels with flowering plants and scattered insects, the eyes and crest of the bird's head spout picked out in colours, 17.5cm long, 9cm high (2)
Footnotes
Provenance
Simon Spero exhibition, 2009, no.16
Literature
White, Mary, Drinking at the Whites' House, Vol.2, 2021, p.323
Although the shape of this diminutive teapot is clearly taken from Meissen the execution of its potting and enamelling is decidedly English. Mary White muses on this interesting paradox and its subsequent appeal. A comparison can be drawn with the decoration on a remarkable Limehouse teapot, lot 129 in this sale. However, it seems more likely that the Longton Hall teapot was decorated in Staffordshire, the painting finding parallels in contemporary saltglaze, already established in the region. Indeed, saltglaze sherds were excavated on the site at Longton Hall.
Only a handful of these early teapots survive. Nicholas Brankin-Frisby illustrates and discusses an example painted in a similar palette with a version of the Two Quail pattern in There is Still Life at Longton Hall, 2021, p.60-61, fig.48. Two examples from the Watney Collection were sold by Phillips on 22 September 1999, lot 83 and on 10 May 2000, lot 498. These are illustrated by Simon Spero in his paper 'A foreign visitor's view of the English porcelain industry in 1753', ECC Trans, Vol.20, Pt.2, 2008, p.416, fig.53 (left) and fig.54.