A pair of Minton Sevres-style turquoise-ground, gilt and painted vases and covers

DATE CYPHER FOR 1862

Details

A pair of Minton Sevres-style turquoise-ground, gilt and painted vases and covers
Date cypher for 1862
Each with part-fluted domed cover with leaf-moulded finial, above a lozenge-moulded rim and waisted fluted neck, the tapering body with four shaped raised panels each with ribbon-tied oak-leaf swag surmount, decorated to the front and back with courting couples in pastoral scenes, and to the sides with baskets of fruit and flowers, musical and hunting trophies, supported by rope and ring moulding between, on circular spreading fluted foot with laurel-moulded edge, on square base, each with puce underglaze crown and ermine mark and impressed MINTON and with year cypher for 1862
22¼ in. (56.5 cm.) high (2)

Literature

Paul Atterbury and Maureen Batkin, The Dictionary of Minton, Woodbridge, 1990, pp. 247, 256 and 323.

Lot Essay

The present pair of vases, designed in the 18th century Sèvres style, were possibly painted by Thomas Allen, whose long association with Minton ran from 1845 to 1875. Allen earned a considerable reputation as a painter of portraits and figure subjects, specialising in mythological and allegorical subjects after Rubens, Etty, Kauffmann and others and his work was included in many international exhibitions from 1851. Bearing the date cypher for 1862 and the printed crown and ermine mark used between 1860 and 1870 on high quality porcelains and earthenwares, including many exhibition pieces, it is most probable that this pair of vases was shown on the large Minton stand at the International Exhibition in London of 1862.

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