Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
Lot 173
A Chelsea pigeon tureen and cover, circa 1755
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
A Chelsea pigeon tureen and cover, circa 1755
The bird modelled nestled in a woven nest, applied around the edge with sieved clay and feathers picked out in green, yellow, brown and purple, its plumage also carefully picked out in tones of brown and purple, 17.5cm long (2)
Footnotes
Provenance
With Klaber & Klaber
With Stockspring Antiques, 2011
Literature
White, Mary, Beasts at the Whites' House, Vol.1, 2020, p.192
The Chelsea factory excelled in the production of pieces such as this resembling animals and vegetables, and similar bird tureens were produced in a variety of forms, including partridges, ducks and swans, often ambitiously life-sized. See Mary White, 2020, p.191 for two partridge tureens. Such pieces would have formed part of a fashionable trompe l'oeil table display. A very similar pigeon tureen in the Higgins Bedford (inv. no.C.300) is illustrated by F Severne Mackenna, Chelsea Porcelain: The Red Anchor Wares, 1951, pl.37, no.76.