Details
A Chinese famille rose Jacobite punch-bowl, the exterior painted with a rifleman and a piper and branches laden with peaches and peonies, the interior with a portrait medallion of Bonnie Prince Charlie within a border scattered with branches of peonies, Qianlong, 11¼in. (28.5cm) diam.
Further details
The piper is copied faithfully from the 1743 frontispiece engraved by George Bickham for A short history of the Highland Regiment. The private is also after a Bickham drawing of the dame date. The piper has been reversed, but the rifleman is as he appears in the drawing. (The same piper design was still being used in 1786 for he appears again in Grose's Military Antiquities, published that year.)
These prints had also been sold separately at the 'Black Horse' in Cornhill in 1743 as a 'set' of four by John Bowles, and it seems probably that two were taken to China (rather than a copy of A History of the Higland Regiment).
This Regiment, the 42nd Foot, amalgamated later with the 73rd and became the Black Watch. On 18 July 1743 Riflemen Farquar and Shaw, together with Samuel and Malcolm McPherson of the 42nd, were shot at the Tower, while Piper Macdonnel (some records say Macdonald) was among those sent as a convict to Georgia for their part in a mutiny. This was the occasion commemorated by John Bowles's set of prints, and a Macdonnel was a piper, it was inevitable that the very recent print of a piper, of the 42nd should be used, and given his name. It is thought that Piper Macdonnel's companion on the porcelain is Rifleman Shaw, but it may equally well have been another of these 'Jacobite martyrs'.
Five or more punch-bowls are known, but most show that many a toast has been drunk from them. There is also a dinner service painted with these two figures. At least twenty plates are known - none showing any signs of wear, for they were probably hidden and never used.
Other examples: plate (Lloyd Hyde, Pl XV0; plate, Royal Scottish Museum, the gift of Sir John Findlay Bt (Chinese Pottery and Porcelain, pl 20); plate (Beurdeley, pl XIX, in colour); similar plate, Zeeuws Museum, Middelburg (Lunsingh Scheurleer, pl 221); plate, Metropolitan Museum, New York (Le Corbeiller pp 94 and 95); punchbowl, Heirloom & Howard, London 1977.
Literature: David Sanctuary Howard, 'Chinese Porcelain of the Jacobites', Country Life, 25 January 1973.
These prints had also been sold separately at the 'Black Horse' in Cornhill in 1743 as a 'set' of four by John Bowles, and it seems probably that two were taken to China (rather than a copy of A History of the Higland Regiment).
This Regiment, the 42nd Foot, amalgamated later with the 73rd and became the Black Watch. On 18 July 1743 Riflemen Farquar and Shaw, together with Samuel and Malcolm McPherson of the 42nd, were shot at the Tower, while Piper Macdonnel (some records say Macdonald) was among those sent as a convict to Georgia for their part in a mutiny. This was the occasion commemorated by John Bowles's set of prints, and a Macdonnel was a piper, it was inevitable that the very recent print of a piper, of the 42nd should be used, and given his name. It is thought that Piper Macdonnel's companion on the porcelain is Rifleman Shaw, but it may equally well have been another of these 'Jacobite martyrs'.
Five or more punch-bowls are known, but most show that many a toast has been drunk from them. There is also a dinner service painted with these two figures. At least twenty plates are known - none showing any signs of wear, for they were probably hidden and never used.
Other examples: plate (Lloyd Hyde, Pl XV0; plate, Royal Scottish Museum, the gift of Sir John Findlay Bt (Chinese Pottery and Porcelain, pl 20); plate (Beurdeley, pl XIX, in colour); similar plate, Zeeuws Museum, Middelburg (Lunsingh Scheurleer, pl 221); plate, Metropolitan Museum, New York (Le Corbeiller pp 94 and 95); punchbowl, Heirloom & Howard, London 1977.
Literature: David Sanctuary Howard, 'Chinese Porcelain of the Jacobites', Country Life, 25 January 1973.