CIRCA 1790

Details

AN ENAMELLED 'REVERSIBLE PORTRAIT' SMALL BOWL
CIRCA 1790
Enamelled in blue, grisaille, sepia, iron-red and gilt on each side with a roundel depicting the profile portrait of an elderly bespectacled matron which, when the bowl is reversed, can be seen as a young woman bearing a bonnet tied with a ribbon, within a blue enamel and gilt 'tongue and groove' border repeated at the rim, cracked
4 3/8 in. (11 cm.) diam.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

This design is taken from a series of similar heads, first illustrated in a comic print and then copied onto English ceramics, where they have been given titles such as 'Grandma/Miss' and 'Before and After Marriage'. See Bevis Hillier, Master Potters of the Industrial Revolution, 1965, pl.38. A plate with different border design from the Mottahedeh Collection is illustrated by Howard and Ayers, China for the West, London and New York, 1978, vol.II, no.372. See also Hervouët and Bruneau, La Porcelaine des Compagnies des Indes à Décor Occidental, Paris, 1986, p.122, fig.6.21 for another plate, where the authors suggest the design may be after a painting by James Gilray. A pair of dishes with this design from the Dr Anton C. R. Dreesmann collection, was sold in these Rooms 10 April 2002, lot 479.

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