A PAIR OF STAFFORDSHIRE WHITE SALTGLAZE MODELS OF HAWKS

THE PROPERTY OF A COLLECTOR

Details

A PAIR OF STAFFORDSHIRE WHITE SALTGLAZE MODELS OF HAWKS
CIRCA 1755

Each with incised plummage to its wings and with brown beak and blue eyes, standing on shaped rectangular rockwork base enriched with dark brown, one with chip above left eye, bruise to right breast and slight fritting to tail, right leg cracked around, with later Louis XV style ormolu bases
11in. (28cm.) high, (4)

Provenance

non sale, Christie's London, 18 February 1980, lot 33

Lot Essay

A careful comparison with the present pair of hawks confirms that they were made from the same mould and by the same hand as the single redware model of a hawk now in the collection of Henry Weldon. Cf. Leslie B. Grigsby, The Henry H. Weldon Collection, English Pottery, Stoneware and Earthenware 1650-1800, London, 1990, cat. no. 241. A single white saltglaze example is in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum (F.S. Kelshawe Bequest, C.40-19790) has the same brown slip pooling around rocky base and blue around the eyes as is found on the present pair. A similar lead-glazed agateware pair formerly in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. F.P. Burnap is now in the collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City.

For an example of the Japanese, Arita, model on which the present hawks are based, see 'The Treasure Houses of Britain', Exhibition Catalogue, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1985-1986, p. 440, no. 372.