CIRCA 1750

Details

A VERY RARE FAMILLE ROSE EUROPEAN-SUJBECT CYLINDRICAL TANKARD
CIRCA 1750
Finely enamelled on the exterior with a large rectangular panel within a gilt scroll surround depicting five ladies and a doctor visiting a patient lying in bed, voluminous pink drapes surrounding the bed, all in an elaborate room interior, the loop handle set over five floral clusters, rim hairline
4½ in. (11.5 cm.) high

Provenance

With H. Glatz, London.
François Hervouët; Sotheby's London, 3 November 1987, lot 843.

Literature

F. and N. Hervouët and Y. Bruneau, La Porcelaine des Compagnies des Indes à Décor Occidental, Paris, 1986, p. 205, fig. 9.38.

Special notice

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

Lot Essay

Hervouët and Bruneau, op.cit., p. 205, suggest that this scene either commemorates the death of a well-known figure, or illustrates a scene from a theatrical tragedy. A very similar, slightly larger, tankard with this scene was in the Mottahedeh Collection, illustrated by Howard and Ayers, China for the West, London and New York, 1978, vol. I, p.242, no. 238. The authors comment that the furniture and fireplace depicted in this scene appear to be English, Dutch or Scandinavian in style and probably date to around 1690 - 1720, indicating that the coloured print from which the scene is taken would be likely to also originate then. They suggest that the scene therefore, if English, could represent the death of Queen Mary in 1694, with King William of Orange standing beside the bed and her sister, Anne, kneeling beside them, although one may question why this event was commemorated fifty years after the event. Alternatively, it could commemorate the death of Queen Anne, in which case these tankards could conceivably have Jacobite significance, since her death was considered by some to be the end of the legitimate succession in Britain.

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