Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
Lot 132
A Chelsea teapot and cover, circa 1750-52
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 Chelsea teapot and cover, circa 1750-52
Of hexagonal shape, unusually painted in a vivid famille rose palette with peonies issuing from behind a painted fence and gnarled roots, flowering chrysanthemum to the reverse, below an elaborate shaped border edged in gold, 12.4cm high (2)
Footnotes
Provenance
Fleur Hoyland Collection
John Riley Collection
Simon Spero exhibition, 2013, no.2
Literature
White, Mary, Drinking at the Whites' House, Vol.2, 2021, p.300, fig.a
Much of the early output at Bow was copying the famille rose style of Chinese export porcelain but Chelsea appear to have made very few pieces in this tradition. The present lot is exceptionally rare for this reason. Chelsea focussed instead on interpreting Japanese designs in the Kakiemon palette, sometimes via the products produced by Continental factories also enamoured with this exotic decorative idiom. See the hexagonal teapot from the Elizabeth Adams Collection painted with the 'Banded Hedges' pattern sold by Bonhams on 19 June 2024, lot 284.
A teapot almost identical to the present lot was gifted to the Seattle Art Museum by Martha and Henry Isaacson but other Chelsea teawares in this pattern are incredibly scarce. A dish with petal-shaped rim painted in a somewhat related design with the addition of large butterflies is in the British Museum, (inv. no.1981,0101.231) and illustrated by Elizabeth Adams, Chelsea Porcelain, 2001, p.84, fig.7.22.