English Creamware Pottery Large Sailor's Farewell Bowl With a Chinoiserie Scene on the Reverse

Details

Description

Creamware Punch Bowl, Sailor Jack on a Cruise after the 1780 Print, Chinoiserie Reverse
England, Staffordshire or Yorkshire
Circa 1780–1790

… Read more Creamware Punch Bowl, Sailor Jack on a Cruise after the 1780 Print, Chinoiserie Reverse
England, Staffordshire or Yorkshire
Circa 1780–1790

A large creamware punch bowl of deep rounded form stands on a tall spreading foot and is painted in overglaze enamels on the exterior with two contrasting scenes, one English and one Chinese in subject.

To one side a British sailor stands with folded arms beneath a spreading tree, wearing a round black hat with a cockade, a blue jacket with pale lapels and yellow striped trousers, a curved hanger at his hip. He turns to admire a fashionably dressed young woman in a red cloak, white apron and blue petticoat, an enormous plumed and ribboned hat set over her curls and a furled parasol in her hand. Behind her stands a red-roofed house within a walled garden with an arched gate; to the right a red-railed fence, a red flag on a staff at the water's edge, a British three-masted ship at anchor flying red pennants and the red ensign, which in this period was worn by warships of the Navy's Red Squadron as well as by merchantmen, and a man rowing a small boat.

The two figures are taken almost line for line from the satirical print "Jack on a Cruise. Avast there, back your Main-top-sail", published in London in 1780 by M. Darly and reissued by Robert Sayer of Fleet Street, in which a sailor ashore gives chase to a fine lady and hails her in the language of the quarterdeck. The painter has kept the sailor's folded arms and cocked hat and the lady's towering hat and furled umbrella, but has dropped the print's classical temple and lapdog and set the couple against a harbor of his own invention, with a house, a fence and a ship riding at anchor. In the print the sailor leans on a walking stick; on the bowl he appears to wear a hanger.

The reverse is painted with a chinoiserie garden. Two Chinese ladies, one in a yellow robe and one in blue, stand together beneath a tree bearing red blossom and gesture toward a boy in a green jacket and blue trousers who carries a pot of red flowers toward them. A second boy in a red jacket sits beside a small red-roofed pavilion, flowering plants grow in red pots, a tall spray of red blossom rises at one side, and small birds fly overhead. The palette throughout is green, iron-red, yellow, blue, puce and black.

Inside, the rim carries a border of iron-red trellis on a green-shaded ground between iron-red lines with a scalloped inner edge, interrupted by four reserves each painted with a fan-shaped iron-red flower head and green leaves. The center of the well is painted with a bouquet of a puce rose, blue and iron-red flowers and green leaves.

At nearly eleven inches across, the bowl holds its own as a centerpiece on a dining table or sideboard, or filled with fruit or greenery on a kitchen island; the sailor and his lady on one face and the Chinese garden on the other give two quite different views, so it can be turned to suit the room. The hole in the foot rim also allows it to be hung on a wall as a former owner clearly did.

Dimensions
Diameter: 10 3/4 inches (27.3 cm)
Height: 4 1/2 inches (11.4 cm)

Provenance
Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge See less