A very rare 'A'-marked coffee cup, circa 1745

Footnotes

Provenance
Geoffrey Godden Collection
Miles Collection, Simon Spero exhibition, 2015, no.13

Literature
Godden, Geoffrey, Eighteenth Century English Porcelain, 1985, p.370, pls.316 and 317
White, Mary, Drinking at the Whites' House, Vol.2, 2021, p.289

The present lot belongs to a distinct group of 'A'-marked fluted cups decorated in oriental taste with eight different so-called 'Stock Patterns' discussed by J V G Mallet, 'The 'A' Marked Porcelains Revisited, ECC Trans, Vol.15, Pt.2, 1994, pp.245-6. A very similar cup illustrated in figs.15 and 16 is now in the Sharp Collection, see Rosalie Wise Sharp, China to Light Up a House, Vol.1, 2015, p.1, no.1. Mary White suggests that the shape may have been taken from silver or an oriental import. Including the aforementioned example and the present lot, just five of these cups are decorated with famille rose flowers in this way. The other three examples were formerly in the collection of the Duke of Northumberland at Alnwick Castle, and are illustrated by R J Charleston and J V G Mallet, 'A Problematical Group of Eighteenth-century Porcelains', ECC Trans, Vol.8, Pt.2, 1972, pl.84(c).

The distinctive style of the 'A-marked flower painter' responsible for the decoration can be exactly matched with flower painting found on some Chelsea porcelain from the earliest years of the Triangle Period, see Errol Manners, ''A'-marked Porcelain and Chelsea; a connection', ECC Trans, Vol.19, Pt.2, 2006, pp.471-5, where the Sharp Collection example is illustrated, figs.1 and 5. This includes two sauceboats in the Victoria and Albert Museum, 'Goat and Bee' and other jugs, and strawberry dishes, see for example lots 104 and 105 in this sale. Mary White suggests that the strawberry dish, lot 105, may be by the same hand as this cup. This not only confirms a mid-1740s London attribution for this important group of porcelain, but is also consistent with the 'First Bow Patent' of 1744.

It is interesting to note that nearly all of the brightly coloured so-called 'Stock Pattern' decoration on 'A'-marked wares occurs on fluted cups. Errol Manners reiterates that the distinctive decoration on these 'A'-marked wares seems to be the work of one painter. It does not occur on other wares such as oriental porcelain or saltglaze pottery, or on the earliest Bow porcelain. A fluted cup with different famille rose style decoration from the Billie Pain Collection was sold by Bonhams on 26 November 2003, lot 18. Another was sold by Bonhams on 12 September 2001, lot 98. For an important snuff box decorated in the more painterly but sombre 'High Style', see lot 71 in this sale.