Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
Lot 179
An exceptionally rare Worcester sugar bowl and cover, circa 1753
1 December 2025, 13:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£5,000 - £8,000
Ask about this lot
Jim Peake
Head of Department
Fergus Gambon
Director
An exceptionally rare Worcester sugar bowl and cover, circa 1753
Of oval flared double ogee form, moulded with upswept rococo shell ornament and trailing sprigs above the foot and just below an extraordinary flame finial burning red, enamelled with polychrome sprigs and formal floral borders, 12.2cm wide, 11.5cm high (2)
Footnotes
Provenance
Sotheby's, 4 December 1962, lot 38
Rous Lench Collection, Sotheby's, 1 July 1986, lot 227
Zorensky Collection, Bonhams, 16 March 2004, lot 19
Simon Spero exhibition, 2004, no.10
Literature
Sandon, John and Spero, Simon, Worcester Porcelain, 1996, p.78, no.20
Jones, Ray, The Origins of Worcester Porcelain, 2018, p.524
White, Mary, Eating at the Whites' House, Vol.3, 2022, p.448
Very few sugar bowls of this form are recorded, the present lot crucially the only example to retain its cover. The cover echoes the rococo verve of the base and indeed the flamiform finial may be intended to represent coral, perhaps more in-keeping with shell ornament. As Mary White notes, the enamelled decoration is quite sparingly applied, as the moulded form is allowed to dominate the overall effect of the piece.
No other English porcelain factory attempted this exact form, which is probably derived from silver. A number of silver covered sugar boxes by Samuel Taylor date from the 1740s and 50s and probably provide the inspiration for the shape and decoration. A Lund's Bristol or experimental Worcester sugar bowl and cover in underglaze blue from the Lyn and Maurice Hillis Collection was recently sold by Bonhams on 11 June 2025, lot 184 and is of a much plainer form. Sugar bowls were amongst the early prunus applied teawares produced by Bow, see the example from the Anton Gabszewicz Collection, Bonhams, 19 November 2025, lot 134 and a slightly later version, which is lot 137 in the same sale.