Regency Ridgway Porcelain Fruit Coolers, Covers & Liners - a Pair

Details

Description

Regency Ridgway Porcelain Fruit Coolers, Covers and Liners, Pair, Dolphin Feet, Pattern 1173
Circa 1820–1825

Few objects capture the theater … Read more Regency Ridgway Porcelain Fruit Coolers, Covers and Liners, Pair, Dolphin Feet, Pattern 1173
Circa 1820–1825

Few objects capture the theater of the Regency dinner table like a pair of porcelain ice pails, and this pair by Ridgway is among the most opulent forms the factory made. Each urn-shaped cooler stands on three gilded dolphins on a shaped trefoil base, its body painted with loose sprays of pink roses, purple asters, and orange blossoms beneath a deep blue band worked over in gilt lattice and scrolls. Gilt ring handles flank the sides, the high domed covers carry gilt flower finials, and each retains its inner liner, so the three-part system that once kept ice cream frozen through a long dinner is complete.

They were made at Cauldon Place, Shelton, by John and William Ridgway between about 1820 and 1825, in pattern No. 1173, and an ice pail of exactly this quality is illustrated in Geoffrey Godden’s Staffordshire Porcelain as the sort supplied only with the most expensive dessert services.

Use them as a pair on a dining table or sideboard, flanking a mirror or a painting, or split them between a pair of console tables in an entrance hall. The deep blue and gold sing against dark timber, lacquer, or a strongly colored wall, and the flower painting picks up chintz, floral wallpaper, and garden-room schemes just as easily. Filled with flowers, or simply left as they are, they hold a room.

Dimensions
Height: 13 1/2 inches (34.3 cm)

Provenance
Carter Collection; Barry Byrne Collection, Australia; Delomosne & Son, London; Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge

Condition
Minor restoration to the dolphins; a hairline invisibly repaired.

Historical Context
John and William Ridgway worked in partnership at Cauldon Place, Shelton, from 1814 until 1830, producing some of the finest porcelain in Staffordshire and competing directly with the leading factories of the day; pattern numbers in the 1100s fall in the early 1820s. Ice pails of this kind, supplied only with the most expensive dessert services, were the portable freezers of the Regency table: the outer bowl was packed with crushed ice and salt, keeping the ice cream or iced fruit in the inner liner frozen through a long dinner, while the cover, itself a shallow bowl, could hold a further layer of ice. Ice cream had appeared in England as early as the 1671 Garter feast at Windsor Castle, and by the 1820s it remained an exclusive luxury; the dolphin feet raise the intensely cold base clear of the damask cloth and polished table beneath.

(Ref: NY05046-ikrr) See less