CIRCA 1770

Sauce tureens modelled in amusing animal or bird forms were a recurring conceit on 18th century European dining tables. A concept that undoubtedly originated with Continental faience, it was taken up quite successfully by Chinese potters. Elephants were rare then, as now, in this group. Symbols of the exotic East Indies to Westerners, elephants had been seen in Europe as early as the 17th century in the form of blue and white kendis. Western ships brought the actual animals back on rare occasions, including the Derby family's America, which carried the first elephant seen in the States to Salem in 1795. As sauce containers this recumbent form was obviously practical, but whatever European print (perhaps from a series depicting life in the Indies?) inspired the scene on the stands and the modelling of the tureens remains unidentified. Fewer than half a dozen pairs of elephant sauce tureens, most without stands, have appeared on the market or in public collections. One is in the Copeland Collection at the Peabody Museum (see W.R. Sargent, op. cit., pp. 206-208) and another was in the Ricardo Espirito Santo Silva collection (see J.A. Lloyd Hyde and R.R. Espirito Santo Silva, Chinese Porcelain for the European Market, pl. viii)