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Lot Essay
Evidently ordered by William, 2nd Baron Talbot of Hensol and Earl Talbot (1710-1782). His grandfather, the Rt. Revd. William Talbot, Bishop of Oxford, then Salisbury, then Durham, had commissioned a handsome blue and white armorial service from China about 1705, one of the first English services and well-known to collectors today; and his father, Charles, a Lord High Chancellor and the first Baron Talbot, ordered a Kakiemon style service in about 1720. William married Mary, only daughter and heir of the Rt. Hon. Adam de Cardonell, in 1734, the year after his father Charles was elevated to the peerage. In 1737 William suceeded his father and in 1761, having been appointed Lord Steward of the Royal Household and a Privy Councillor, he was advanced to an earldom as Earl Talbot. (See D.S. Howard, Chinese Armorial Porcelain, pp. 164, 200, 494, 541.)
By the first Earl Talbot's day the tradition of hunting was well-established in English country life. Packs of hounds for foxhunting or coursing had been trained and kept from as early as about 1600, and by the 1750's these sports had almost completely taken over from the even more ancient aristocratic pastime of stag hunting. Hounds had special meaning for Earl Talbot, however, beyond a love of the hunt or affection for the faithful animals: 'talbot' itself being an ancient breed introduced to England in 1066 by William the Conqueror. In fact the Talbot arms as borne by William show two hound supporters, finely rendered on each of his Chinese export tea services, and recorded in Burke's Peerage and Baronetage as "Supporters - Two talbot arg...".
As early as the 15th century English hunting hounds were famous as hunting dogs within Europe. In 1487 Sforza, Duke of Milan, wrote to King Henry "...The two noble dogs which we desired from your island have arrived safely, and nothing could please us better". As the English East India companies began to trade in the Far East English hounds became an important commodity for them too. In 1614 Captain Saris wrote recommending a "...fine greyhound..." as tribute for the Daimyo of Hirado and the same year the Governor of Surat requested from the East India Company "...looking glasses, figures of beasts or birds made of glass, mastiffs, greyhounds, spaniels and little dogs..." (See W. Heinemann, Dogs of China and Japan in Nature and Art, London 1921.) Giuseppe Castiglione, Jesuit painter at the Beijing court, portrayed English hounds with white underbellies in Chinese landscape in a 1765 series of gouaches (now in the National Palace Museum, Taipei).
The Chinese had their own tradition of domesticated dogs, and also of ceramic animal sculpture. Models of dogs wearing tasselled or bell-hung collars appear in Han and Tang dynasty tomb pottery, along with their more famous horse and camel cousins. Small Chinese porcelain models of hounds made for export survive in some numbers, in blanc-de-chine porcelain from the 17th century, listed as "toys" on the Dutch East India Company bills of lading, and in iron-red decorated Jingdezhen ware from the 18th century. The monumental size of the present pair, however, was no doubt difficult to achieve as well as vastly expensive, and was certainly attempted only on special order. Fewer than half a dozen of comparable importance are recorded. One is in the collection of Mrs. Lammot du Pont Copeland and a promised gift to the Peabody Museum of Salem, illustrated and discussed by William R. Sargent, The Copeland Collection, p. 139; a pair in a private Italian collection is illustrated by M. Beurdeley and G. Raindre, Qing Porcelain, no. 290; and another pair was sold Sotheby's London, 10 June 1997, lot 242. William, Earl Talbot was a descendant of the 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury (d. 1490), and, interestingly, the two families were reunited in the 19th century when, in 1856, the 5th Baron and 3rd Earl Talbot became the 18th Earl of Shrewsbury. This Lord Shrewsbury was Master of the North Staffordshire Hunt 1869-70, and in 1956 his descendant sold the hounds that had been ordered from China by his proud ancestor almost 200 years earlier.
By the first Earl Talbot's day the tradition of hunting was well-established in English country life. Packs of hounds for foxhunting or coursing had been trained and kept from as early as about 1600, and by the 1750's these sports had almost completely taken over from the even more ancient aristocratic pastime of stag hunting. Hounds had special meaning for Earl Talbot, however, beyond a love of the hunt or affection for the faithful animals: 'talbot' itself being an ancient breed introduced to England in 1066 by William the Conqueror. In fact the Talbot arms as borne by William show two hound supporters, finely rendered on each of his Chinese export tea services, and recorded in Burke's Peerage and Baronetage as "Supporters - Two talbot arg...".
As early as the 15th century English hunting hounds were famous as hunting dogs within Europe. In 1487 Sforza, Duke of Milan, wrote to King Henry "...The two noble dogs which we desired from your island have arrived safely, and nothing could please us better". As the English East India companies began to trade in the Far East English hounds became an important commodity for them too. In 1614 Captain Saris wrote recommending a "...fine greyhound..." as tribute for the Daimyo of Hirado and the same year the Governor of Surat requested from the East India Company "...looking glasses, figures of beasts or birds made of glass, mastiffs, greyhounds, spaniels and little dogs..." (See W. Heinemann, Dogs of China and Japan in Nature and Art, London 1921.) Giuseppe Castiglione, Jesuit painter at the Beijing court, portrayed English hounds with white underbellies in Chinese landscape in a 1765 series of gouaches (now in the National Palace Museum, Taipei).
The Chinese had their own tradition of domesticated dogs, and also of ceramic animal sculpture. Models of dogs wearing tasselled or bell-hung collars appear in Han and Tang dynasty tomb pottery, along with their more famous horse and camel cousins. Small Chinese porcelain models of hounds made for export survive in some numbers, in blanc-de-chine porcelain from the 17th century, listed as "toys" on the Dutch East India Company bills of lading, and in iron-red decorated Jingdezhen ware from the 18th century. The monumental size of the present pair, however, was no doubt difficult to achieve as well as vastly expensive, and was certainly attempted only on special order. Fewer than half a dozen of comparable importance are recorded. One is in the collection of Mrs. Lammot du Pont Copeland and a promised gift to the Peabody Museum of Salem, illustrated and discussed by William R. Sargent, The Copeland Collection, p. 139; a pair in a private Italian collection is illustrated by M. Beurdeley and G. Raindre, Qing Porcelain, no. 290; and another pair was sold Sotheby's London, 10 June 1997, lot 242. William, Earl Talbot was a descendant of the 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury (d. 1490), and, interestingly, the two families were reunited in the 19th century when, in 1856, the 5th Baron and 3rd Earl Talbot became the 18th Earl of Shrewsbury. This Lord Shrewsbury was Master of the North Staffordshire Hunt 1869-70, and in 1956 his descendant sold the hounds that had been ordered from China by his proud ancestor almost 200 years earlier.