拍品專文
When offered for sale in 1963, this lot formed part of a group of fable-decorated tea-wares including a teapot and cover, four further teabowls and saucers and a single saucer
The illustration on the teabowl is taken from Croxall, The Fables...., p. 329, no. 193 and the saucer from Francis Barlow, Aesop's Fables, with his Life, pl. 21, fig. 51. Cf. the silver-shaped plate with this latter subject sold in these Rooms on 1 October 1990, lot 146 and the group of fable-decorated octagonal teabowls and saucers from the collection of Lord Brownlow, Belton House, Lincolnshire, Christie's sale on the premises, 2 May 1984, lots 804-809
The conundrum concerning the attribution of the Chelsea fable wares to any specific artist remains unsolved although the most favoured choice for this group is that of Jefferyes Hammett O'Neale. Major W.H. Tapp's extensive researches into the segregation of style by groups, notably in 'The First Chelsea Fable Painter', Apollo, August 1943, and his two papers to the English Ceramic Circle published in the Transactions, vol. 1, no. 4 and Vol. 3, pt. 5 are inconclusive. F. Severne Mackenna in Chelsea Porcelain, The Triangle and Raised Anchor Wares and in Chelsea Porcelain, The Red Anchor Wares, presents the facts more coherently and separates the variations in style without elaborate conjecture. The attribution to O'Neale must remain tentative but this group clearly belong to the transition between the raised and red anchor periods
The illustration on the teabowl is taken from Croxall, The Fables...., p. 329, no. 193 and the saucer from Francis Barlow, Aesop's Fables, with his Life, pl. 21, fig. 51. Cf. the silver-shaped plate with this latter subject sold in these Rooms on 1 October 1990, lot 146 and the group of fable-decorated octagonal teabowls and saucers from the collection of Lord Brownlow, Belton House, Lincolnshire, Christie's sale on the premises, 2 May 1984, lots 804-809
The conundrum concerning the attribution of the Chelsea fable wares to any specific artist remains unsolved although the most favoured choice for this group is that of Jefferyes Hammett O'Neale. Major W.H. Tapp's extensive researches into the segregation of style by groups, notably in 'The First Chelsea Fable Painter', Apollo, August 1943, and his two papers to the English Ceramic Circle published in the Transactions, vol. 1, no. 4 and Vol. 3, pt. 5 are inconclusive. F. Severne Mackenna in Chelsea Porcelain, The Triangle and Raised Anchor Wares and in Chelsea Porcelain, The Red Anchor Wares, presents the facts more coherently and separates the variations in style without elaborate conjecture. The attribution to O'Neale must remain tentative but this group clearly belong to the transition between the raised and red anchor periods