CIRCA 1790

Details

A PAIR OF EXPORT 'REVERSIBLE PORTRAIT' PLATES
Circa 1790
Each enamelled in blue, grisaille, sepia, iron-red and gilt with a central roundel depicting the profile portrait of a young woman wearing a bonnet tied with a ribbon, conjoined to the profile of an elderly bespectacled matron, the border with a blue enamel leaf band
9 5/8 in. (24.5 cm.) diam. (2)

Provenance

Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 7 July 1980, lot 180 (to Dreesmann).
Dr Anton C.R. Dreesmann (inventory no.J-4).

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

This design is taken from a series of similar portraits, first illustrated in a comic print and then copied on to English ceramics, where they have been given titles such as 'Grandma/Miss' and 'Before and After Marriage'. See Bevis Hillier, Master Potters of the Industrial Revolution, 1965, pl.38. A very similar plate from the Mottahedeh Collection is illustrated by Howard and Ayers, China for the West, London and New York, 1978, vol.II, no.372. See also Hervouët and Bruneau, La Porcelaine des Compagnies des Indes à Décor Occidental, Paris, 1986, p.122, fig.6.21 for another plate, where the authors suggest the design may be after a painting by James Gilray.

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