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Lot Essay
Jardinières or bough-pots of this type were frequently used throughout formal garden parterres and to adorn empty summer fireplaces. Thomas Fairchild in his The City Gardener (London 1722) talks of city-dwellers 'furnishing …Rooms or Chambers with Basons of Flowers and Bough-pots (p. 7). This form and scale of bough-pot bears a close relation to a group still in English collections today. At Chatsworth is an armorial bough-pot of very similar form which was commissioned by William Cavendish (shortly before being created the first Duke of Devonshire in 1694), and there are six bough-pots of similar form at Dyrham Park in Gloucestershire, ordered by William Blathwayt, the Secretary of War under both James II and William III.
Queen Mary, a passionate gardener and collector of ceramics, had become an important patroness of the Delft factories which supplied the superb garden pots and vases for her plants and flowers at the new garden palace of Het Loo Palace in Holland. The English aristocracy followed her example by ordering large urns and bough-pots from the Delft factories, most notably from the 'Greek A' factory, run by Adrianus Kocks between 1687 and 1701. The bough-pot from Chatsworth, the set of bough-pots at Dyrham and the tulipières at Hampton Court all bear the AK monogram. It has long been suggested that the highly fashionable French Huguenot designer Daniel Marot (1662-1752) had an influential role in the design and form of ceramics produced at the Greek A factory (see Arthur Lane, "Daniel Marot: Designer of Delft Vases and of Gardens at Hampton Court", The Connoisseur, March 1949, pps 19-24 and Joan Wilson, "A Phenomenon of Taste, The China Ware of Queen Mary II", Ipollo Magazine, August 1972, pp. 116-123), and although the decoration of the present lot is inspired by blue and white Chinese porcelain originals, it would seem that its form is related to Marot's designs for garden urns and bough-pots in painted overdoor decorations.
Queen Mary, a passionate gardener and collector of ceramics, had become an important patroness of the Delft factories which supplied the superb garden pots and vases for her plants and flowers at the new garden palace of Het Loo Palace in Holland. The English aristocracy followed her example by ordering large urns and bough-pots from the Delft factories, most notably from the 'Greek A' factory, run by Adrianus Kocks between 1687 and 1701. The bough-pot from Chatsworth, the set of bough-pots at Dyrham and the tulipières at Hampton Court all bear the AK monogram. It has long been suggested that the highly fashionable French Huguenot designer Daniel Marot (1662-1752) had an influential role in the design and form of ceramics produced at the Greek A factory (see Arthur Lane, "Daniel Marot: Designer of Delft Vases and of Gardens at Hampton Court", The Connoisseur, March 1949, pps 19-24 and Joan Wilson, "A Phenomenon of Taste, The China Ware of Queen Mary II", Ipollo Magazine, August 1972, pp. 116-123), and although the decoration of the present lot is inspired by blue and white Chinese porcelain originals, it would seem that its form is related to Marot's designs for garden urns and bough-pots in painted overdoor decorations.