A fine and early Chelsea white 'teaplant' coffee pot and cover, circa 1745-49

Footnotes

Provenance
Godden Reference Collection, Bonhams, 14 April 2010, lot 72
With Simon Spero, 2010

Literature
White, Mary, Drinking at the Whites' House, Vol.2, 2021, p.298

Exhibited
Stoke-on-Trent Museum, 1989

Coffee pots are rare forms in Chelsea and only 'teaplant' and 'acanthus' moulded examples survive. The influence of Sprimont's repoussé silver on the design is particularly striking and is discussed in detail by Sally Kevill-Davies, 'Some new connections between Nicholas Sprimont's silver and early Chelsea porcelain', ECC Trans, Vol.31, 2020, where another example in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. no.C.221&A-1940) is illustrated on p.122, fig.33. The shape of the pot derives from a silver example of circa 1744-45 from the Oranienbaum service, now in the Kremlin Armoury Museum in Moscow (inv. no.MZ-725), illustrated on p.120, fig.28, while the spiralling 'teaplant' decoration is inspired by two tea canisters and a sugar vase of similar date, now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (inv. nos.1988.1075 to 1077), illustrated on p.121, fig.32. Kevill-Davies suggests that the 'knuckled' handle may ultimately have its origins in mid-17th century silver by Adam van Vianen. The 'teaplant' design is also found on Chelsea beakers, sugar basins and covers, cream jugs, and a saucer, although no teapot has yet been recorded.

A glazed and enamelled fragment of a 'teaplant' coffee pot was excavated on the Chelsea factory site in 1843, see Aubrey Toppin, 'Recent Discoveries: A note on Excavations at Chelsea in 1843', EPC Trans, No.3, 1931, p.69 and pl.XIIIa, where the fragment is shown alongside another example in the collection of Wallace Elliot. An unglazed cover in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. no.C.54-1961) was discovered on the factory site during excavations in 1906 and is illustrated and discussed by Geoffrey Godden, Eighteenth-Century English Porcelain, 1985, pp.12-14, col. pl.2 and pl.8. A very similar coffee pot from the Kaufman Collection is illustrated by John C Austin, Chelsea Porcelain at Williamsburg, 1977, p.36, no.15 and by F Severne Mackenna, Chelsea Porcelain: The Triangle and Raised Anchor Wares, 1948, pl.4, no.9. Another is illustrated by Rosalie Wise Sharp, China to Light Up a House, Vol.1, 2015, p.72, no.219. See also the example exhibited by E & H Manners, Early English White Sculptural Porcelain, 2020, no.4, where it is suggested that the 'teaplant' design may ultimately derive from an engraving by Wenceslaus Hollar published by Johannes Nieuhof, An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, 1669, p.87.