Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
Lot 60
A Chinese 'Fable' coffee cup and a London-decorated Chinese 'Fable' teabowl and a saucer, circa 1750-60
1 December 2025, 13:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£400 - £600
Ask about this lot
Jim Peake
Head of Department
Fergus Gambon
Director
A Chinese 'Fable' coffee cup and a London-decorated Chinese 'Fable' teabowl and a saucer, circa 1750-60
The cup of plain U-shape with a loop handle, painted in bright colours with the fable of 'The Wolf and Dog' within a scrolled panel, an elaborate foliate gilt border to the rim, 5.9cm high, the teabowl painted with the fable of 'The Sow and the Bitch', a landscape vignette to the reverse, a 'Grubbe' border gilded inside the rim, 7.9cm diam, the saucer painted with the fable of 'The Fox and the Crane' within a gilt scrolled border, the rim also gilt, 12cm diam (3)
Footnotes
Provenance
R & G McPherson Antiques, 2012 (cup)
Helen Espir Collection (teabowl)
With Jupiter Antiques, 2019 (teabowl)
Literature
Hanscombe, Stephen, Jefferyes Hamett O'Neale, 2010, pp.90-1, no.75 (teabowl)
White, Mary, 'Luxury porcelain decoration in London 1750-55: O'Neale and London Ateliers', ECC Trans, Vol.30, 2019, pp.44-5, figs.26 (teabowl) and 28 (saucer)
White, Mary, Beasts at the Whites' House, Vol.1, 2020, p.131 (saucer), p.143 (teabowl) and p.144 (cup)
Mary White suggests that the teabowl and the saucer in this lot may either be by O'Neale himself or perhaps by a student of his. The source print for 'The Sow and the Bitch' is Fable CIII from one of the editions of the Fables of Aesop by Samuel Croxall, first published in 1722, denoted by the number in red on the underside. It concerns two animals quarrelling about fertility, the moral being 'the more haste, the worse speed'. 'The Wolf and the Crane' is Fable LXXXIV by Francis Barlow, see lot 55 in this sale for the same version of this fable by a different hand on a Chelsea saucer. The gilt decoration on both pieces suggests a possible link to the London workshop of James Giles, particularly the so-called 'Grubbe' border on the teabowl which links it to a series of Worcester plates with distinctive decoration added in this workshop and was part of a larger service illustrated by Stephen Hanscombe, 2010, p.91. In contrast, the coffee cup is Chinese enamelling decorated in Canton, the source print for 'The Wolf and Dog' being Fable XCVII from Francis Barlow's Aesop's Fables, with the gilding perhaps inspired by Meissen.