CIRCA 1755

Details

A GRISAILLE AND GILT EUROPEAN-SUBJECT COFFEE-CUP AND SAUCER
CIRCA 1755
Decorated en grisaille with a figure wearing long robes and holding a long stick over his shoulder handing over a coin to a younger man with a dog, all in a landscape with buildings in the distance, within a rococo band incorporating bats over a gilt scroll ground at the rims
the saucer 4¾ in. (12 cm.) diam.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium

Lot Essay

A saucer from this service is illustrated by Hervouët and Bruneau, La Porcelaine des Compagnies des Indes à Décor Occidental, Paris, 1986, p. 261, fig. 11.8, where the authors suggest that this scene depicts the angel Raphael in disguise handing over money to Tobias for his father on whose instructions he has collected the debt from Gabelus. A famille rose teapot with this design from the Mottahedeh Collection is illustrated by Howard and Ayers, China for the West, London and New York, 1978, vol. I, p. 311, no. 304, where the authors quote extracts from the Book of Tobit, in the Apocrypha describing these events and mention that a saucer with the same scene is in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

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