A Worcester two-handled Sauceboat, circa 1756-58
This rare Worcester two-handled, double-lipped sauceboat is moulded with four oak-leaf cartouches, each containing a finely painted European figure standing in a landscape, a gentleman and a lady on either side of the handles. The interior is painted with a large flower spray. There are shell-moulded spouts at either end. The interior rim is painted with puce scrolling swags, and the exterior rim of the pouring spouts is painted with puce feathery scrolls. The lower handle terminals are surrounded by circular moulded rosettes edged with puce feuille de choux decoration.
The form of this sauceboat is influenced by English silver designs from the 1720s. This shape was produced for only a few years from the mid-1750s.
Provenance: An English Private Collection.
Condition: The painted decoration is especially fine. There is a minute loss to the edge of the foot rim, caused when a tiny drop of glaze had fused inside the kiln and the sauceboat was subsequently removed from the saggar after firing. There is a curved crack from the rim, leading into one of the cartouches, which probably began as a small clay tear. No other damage or restoration.
Dimensions: Length 19.3 cm
Worcester Porcelain 1751-1790: The Zorensky Collection, Simon Spero & John Sandon (Antique Collectors’ Club, 1996).
Coloured Worcester Porcelain of the First Period, H. Rissik Marshall (Ceramic Book Company. 1954).
Ref. A similar sauceboat with flattened thumbrests was in the Zorensky Collection, no. 102.