Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
Lot 177
A rare Worcester twelve-sided teabowl and saucer, circa 1752
1 December 2025, 13:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£3,000 - £4,000
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Jim Peake
Head of Department
Fergus Gambon
Director
A rare Worcester twelve-sided teabowl and saucer, circa 1752
Moulded with deep concave flutes, painted in colourful enamels with a heron-like 'Strutting Bird' amongst prunus and other striking flowering plants, a border of half-flowerhead panels and green diaper below the rims, further oriental flowers within the interior of the teabowl, saucer 12cm wide, teabowl 4.5cm high (2)
Footnotes
Provenance
Commander and Mrs Paul Howell Collection (teabowl)
Bunny and Paul Davies Collection, Simon Spero exhibition, 2013, no.15 (saucer)
Miles Collection, Simon Spero exhibition, 2015, no.22 (teabowl)
Literature
White, Mary, Drinking at the Whites' House, Vol.2, 2021, p.345, figs.a and b
An identical teabowl and saucer is illustrated alongside matching biscuit shards excavated at the Worcester factory site by David Barker and Sam Cole, Digging for Early Porcelain, 1998, p.75, fig.19. See lot 185 in this sale for a teabowl of this form decorated in underglaze blue.
This attractive and innovative form and must have stood out in the early output of the factory, as no similar shape was produced by Chelsea or Bow. Simon Spero suggests that the likely origin of the shape was Chinese and points to a Kangxi period teabowl and saucer from Jingdezhen in the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, see Lund's Bristol and Early Worcester Porcelain 1750-58: The A J Smith Collection, 2006, p.151.
Although no corresponding fluted cream jug or teapot exists, the enamelled decoration so pleasingly executed on this form becomes an idiosyncratic feature in the small and attractive shapes produced by Worcester in the period 1752-55. Another teabowl and saucer of this form and pattern was sold by Bonhams on 10 December 2008, lot 98.