Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
Lot 62
A unique canteen of cutlery with Vauxhall porcelain handles, circa 1756-58
1 December 2025, 13:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£6,000 - £8,000
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Jim Peake
Head of Department
Fergus Gambon
Director
A unique canteen of cutlery with Vauxhall porcelain handles, circa 1756-58
The handles of faceted pistol-grip form, painted in blue in St Cloud style with lambrequin motifs, with silver ferrules, comprising twelve larger handles mounted as knives with steel blades, and twelve smaller handles mounted as forks with steel tines, the shagreen box lined with red silk and velvet edged in silver thread, with a brass carrying handle and lock, handles 9cm and 7.5cm long, case 26cm high (25)
Footnotes
Provenance
With W W Warner Antiques, 2012
Literature
White, Mary, 'Two cutlery boxes and their contents', ECC Trans, Vol.26, 2015, pp.31 and 33-4, figs.1, 7, 8 and 10
White, Mary, Eating at the Whites' House, Vol.3, 2022, p.335
Mary White highlights this remarkable set as perhaps the most unique piece in their collection. Vauxhall cutlery handles are rare in themselves, but to find a complete set in its original box is truly exceptional. The decoration is directly paralleled by St Cloud examples, which were decorated after the broderie ornaments of the designer Jean Bérain, see Mary White, 2015, p.34, fig.10 and Mary White, 2022, p.330, figs.a and b for a very similar pair of St Cloud hafts. Fragments of similar handles were found during excavations of the Vauxhall factory site in 1987, clearly demonstrating the influence of St Cloud, see Massey, Marno and Spero, Ceramics of Vauxhall, 2007, p.88, no.160 and Mary White, 2015, p.34, fig.9. While both the cutlery and case in the present lot are unmarked, Mary White suggests that the set would have been assembled in London by a firm such as Joseph Gibbs or John Brailsford. A similar Vauxhall knife handle with different decoration in St Cloud style was sold by Bonhams on 17 May 2017, lot 238.