Du Paquier Clock
Vienna circa 1725-30
39.5 cm high

Decorated in iron-red and gold with seated lions on either side. A profile portrait bust of the Emperor Charles VI is set beneath an eagle with outstretched wings standing on a sphere.

This is a remarkable example of this rare factory at its most ambitious.

An ‘A-mark’ teapot

Incised ‘A’ mark

Circa 1744

This is one of the approximately forty know examples of this group of the earliest English porcelain made by Thomas Frye and Edward Heylin using kaolin imported from the American colonies

It is probably the last remaining teapot of this group in private hands

Painted and gilt burnished earthenware vase, ‘Tibor’

Guadalajara, Mexico

Late 17th century

These imports from Mexico were much sought after princely treasures in the late 17th Century. The aromatic clay was believed to have medicinal properties

Comparable examples can be found in princely collections such as that of Herzog Anton Ulrich in Braunschweig

An important painting of Nicholas Sprimont
oil on canvass
circa 1760

Nicholas Sprimont was a great Huguenot silversmith who established the Chelsea porcelain factory. In this painting he is seen seated with his wife and sister-in-law amongst finished and unfinished Chelsea porcelain.

This is the only known picture of Sprimont

A Capodimonte gold and enamel-mounted scent–bottle and stopper
4 ¼ inches, 10.6 cm, high
Circa 1755

Painted with a half-length portrait of Prince Charles Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie, in armour wearing the sash and star of the Garter and the green sash of the order of the Thistle.

Probably painted by Giovanni Sigismondo Fischer after Louis-Gabriel Blanchet.

The gold and enamel mounts are London work by an unidentified goldsmith.

This appears to be the only example of porcelain from the Royal Bourbon factory of Capodimonte in Naples with an English or Jacobite connection. No other scent bottles of this form and decoration are known.

Reverse of the Capodimonte scent bottle

Sold to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

A Sèvres biscuit group of Pygmalion and Galatea on oval stand
Modelled by Etienne-Maurice Falconet

incised cursive ‘B’
1764-73

This group depicts the moment when the statue of Galatea created by Pygmalion comes to life, the subject is taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

This is widely acknowledged as the finest of all early Sèvres biscuit sculptures, the original marble caused a sensation at the Salon of 1763 and was greatly admired by Diderot.

A Pair of Volpato biscuit Porcelain figures of Centaurs after the Antique. Rome, Circa 1795

The elder centaur impressed ‘Volpato Roma’
36.0 cm high including ebonised bases
29.8 and 31.5 cm. high without the ebonised bases.

These figures copy and adapt Roman Hellenistic sculptures that are now in the Capitoline Museum in Rome and in the Louvre.

Giovanni Volpato was a noted engraver who established a porcelain factory in the late 18th century. These are particularly fine quality examples of this rare factory.

The only other pair of these figures that I have been able to find is in the Museo Artistico Industriale, Naples, illustrated in the recently published I Trionfi di Volpato, Il Centrotavola del Museo di Bassano del Grappa e il biscuit neoclassico, Si

An ‘A’ Mark fluted cup

Circa 1744

One of about 39 known examples of the earliest factory to produce porcelain in England.

On December 6th, 1744 Edward Heylyn and Thomas Frye entered a patent for the manufacture of porcelain.

The patent specified that it required the use of clay transported from the Americas, a produce of the Cherokee nation and called by the natives ‘unaker'.

This short-lived experimental factory produce a very fine porcelain but ceased production after a short time for reasons unknown. It lead to the establishment of the Bow factory shortly afterwards.

A Set of Four Derby Figures of The European Senses modelled after Agostino Carlini R.A.

Early ‘Pale-Family’ Period
Circa 1755/56

Although depicting four of the five senses, this is the complete set as hearing was not included and no examples of this period are known.

The identity of the sculptor of these and other masterly early Derby figures has recently been identified by J.V.G. Mallet in his paper, ‘Agostiono Carlini and Dry-Edge Derby’, British Ceramic design, 1600-2002, The English Ceramic Circle, 2002

A Chinese porcelain tea and coffee service decorated in London by Jefferyes Hammet O'Neale
circa 1758-60

Jefferyes Hammet O'Neale perfected this style of fable painting whilst at Chelsea and briefly worked on Chinese porcelain in London before moving to Worcester.

This was the only service in which each peace was numbered with the plate from Croxall's edition of Aesop's Fables

A Naples ‘Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea’ biscuit porcelain group of Bacco ed Amore By Filippo Tagliolini c. 1796

21 inches (53.5 cm) high

The group derives from an antique sculpture in the Farnese collection restored by Albacini

A Naples ‘Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea’ biscuit porcelain group of Bacco ed Amore By Filippo Tagliolini c. 1796

21 inches (53.5 cm) high

A Japanese Arita bowl deorated in 'schwarzlot' by Ignaz Preissler
Bohemia circa 1720

Sold to the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA

A large Chelsea stand for a Chicken tureen
circa 1755

Sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art

An early Vincennes Sucrier à la Reine
Circa 1751/52

12.8 cm wide, 12.7 cm high

Painted with birds in ‘bat wing’ cartouches on a gilt-flecked ground simulating lapis lazuli.

One of a Pair of Sèvres seau à topette
from the Chéreméteff Service
Circa 1767- 68

6 inches (15.3cm) high

These two seau are part of an assemblage of 520 pieces owned at the end of the nineteenth century and until about 1906 by Count A.D. Chéreméteff, probably assembled in the Chéreméteff Palace, St. Petersburg.

The Chéreméteff bird-painted porcelain forms part of a dessert service. The paintings are based on engravings by the English naturalist George Edwards (1694-1773), from a French edition of The Natural History of Birds.

A Vincennes figure of Astronomy or Astrology

Circa 1748

A North German ‘Niederrhein’ incised slipware charger with Friedrich Wilhelm, Crown Prince of Prussia on horseback.

Dated 1781
Signed: Hendrich Dencken
42 cm. diameter

A Chantilly peach-shaped cup and saucer
Circa 1735

Painted in kakiemon colours with oriental figures in a boat beside a pavilion and rockwork

A rare form from the best period of the factory

A Chelsea figure of a carpenter
circa 1754

An original model by the sculptor Josef Willems

A Chinese blanc-de-chine chocolate pot and cover decorated in London

4 ¾ inches, 12.1 cm high

This is one of the finest examples of a group of pieces that have long been held to be Dutch-decorated but can now be shown to be enamelled in England, probably London, around the first decade of the 18th century.

Provenance: Watney Collection.

A Meissen tureen made for Count Bruhl
from the Brühlsches Allerlei service

Sold to the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg,

A Niderviller porcelain ‘Caisse à Oignons’
1761-66

This is a masterpiece of flamboyant rococo design in porcelain and a technical triumph to fire successfully.

An example in the Louvre bears the arms of the duc de Choiseul-Stanville with the Order of the Golden Fleece, the duc was made a Knight of the order in 1761 and the production of porcelain was interrupted for four years from 1766 after the death of t

Sold to the Musée Ariana, Geneva

A Sèvres biscuit porcelain Gerbe des Saisons
Circa 1817

Sold to Uppark House

A Doccia ‘Stampino’ dish
Circa 1745 10.5 inches, (27 cm) by 8.4 inches, (21.2) cm

This stencil technique represents the earliest attempt at a mechanical type of decoration on European porcelain

A Meissen leaf-shaped dish with brocade pattern

Circa 1730
9 ½ inches (24.2 cm. wide)

The rare form and decoration are taken from a Japanese original.

Sold to the Musée Arianna, Geneva

A Meissen group of Harlequin and ColumbineModelled by J.J. Kändler
Circa 1742

A Massive Faience Wine Cooler
Dorotheenthal
Mark: a cursive ‘f’
For Johann Philipp Frantz
Circa 1715-20
73 x 52 x 29 cm.

The Arms of Braunschweig-Lüneburg-Wolfenbüttel And the State-Coat-of-Arms of the Fürsten Schwarzburg-Sondershausen

Of lobed quatrefoil form supported on four claw and ball feet with floral swags suspended from eagle heads, the ends with lion masks and the sides with two shields bearing the armorials. Painted in cobalt blue with some manganese, yellow and iron-red

The Dorotheenthal faience factory was founded around 1715/16 by Augusta Dorothea of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel (1666-1751), the daughter of Duke Anton Ulrich of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel and the widow of Count Anton Günther II. of Schazburg-Sondershau

The first manager of the Dorotheenthal factory was Johann Philipp Frantz who had come from Braunschweig in 1715 with other throwers and painters. Augusta Dorothea’s father Herzog Anton Ulrich had established a faience factory in Braunschweig in 1707.

Provenance:
Sotheby’s ‘Property from the Royal House of Hanover’, Schloss Marienburg, 5th to 15th October 2005.

A Meissen octagonal plate from the Christie-Miller service.

22.5 cm wide
Circa 1740

This is the most elaborately enamelled service made at Meissen in the 18th century.

By tradition, in the Christie-Miller family, it was said to have been purchased from the Orléans family, the then Royal family, in Paris in about 1840. The waste bowl of the service is dated 1740 on a signpost. The scenes are taken from two volumes o

Provenance: Lord Biddulph

Charles Gouyn’s factory
St. James’s, London A ‘Girl-in-a-Swing’ Scent bottle in the form of a Hawk
Circa 1749-1754

6 cm high

An Elers Brothers redware teapot and cover with European parcel-gilt mounts.
Staffordshire. Circa 1695

The Elers brothers introduced the technique of slip-casting to produce some of the finest and rarest European copies of the Chinese Yixing teapots. The particularly fine mounts were probably added in Germany in the late 17th century.

Elers wares were exported to the continent and can still be found in a number of old collections in Germany and Holland.

A Vincennes Gobelet Calabre and saucer with elaborately gilded flowers in cartouches On a deep bleu lapis ground

1754-55

Underglazed blue interlaced ‘L’s