Chelsea Porcelain Reticulated Dessert Dishes, Pair, Gold Anchor Period, Circa 1760

Details

Description

Chelsea Porcelain Pair of Reticulated Circular Dessert Dishes, Gold Anchor Period
Circa 1760

This pair of Chelsea porcelain circular dessert … Read more Chelsea Porcelain Pair of Reticulated Circular Dessert Dishes, Gold Anchor Period
Circa 1760

This pair of Chelsea porcelain circular dessert dishes has a deep openwork border of two staggered rows of interlacing ovals, the outer row shaping the edge into a scalloped rim finished with a narrow gilt line. The piercing was cut by hand through the unfired soft-paste body, and a border of this depth was liable to sag or crack in the kiln; on both dishes the openwork survives intact. Each well is painted in enamel colors with a loose bouquet of European flowers in the manner Chelsea adopted from Meissen, set slightly off center with smaller sprigs scattered around it.

One dish is painted with a bouquet built around a large purple aster and a fringed iron-red flower with a pale center, with smaller blue, purple and yellow blooms and a stem of yellow-tipped buds, and a single sprig of puce buds to the lower left. The other has a pink rose at the center of a group of blue, puce and yellow flowers with a spike of iron-red blossom rising above it, and three small sprigs scattered around the well, one hung with pendant pink bells. The asymmetrical placement and the open scatter of sprigs are characteristic of the Rococo taste of the gold anchor years.

The pair can be hung with plate hangers, where the openwork reads clearly against a painted or papered wall, or shown on stands on a mantel, bookcase or dining-room sideboard.

Dimensions
Diameter: 7 1/2 inches (19.1 cm)
Height: 1 1/2 inches (3.8 cm)

Marks
One dish with a small gold anchor; the other unmarked.

Provenance
Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge

Condition
Good antique condition. The reticulation is intact and the gilding remains bright; some crazing to the glaze.

References
F. Severne Mackenna, Chelsea Porcelain: The Gold Anchor Wares (Leigh-on-Sea: F. Lewis, 1952), plate 7, no. 12, for a dish with similar painting.
Elizabeth Adams, Chelsea Porcelain, revised edition (London: British Museum Press, 2001).

Historical Context
The gold anchor mark came into use at Chelsea in the late 1750s, when the factory under Nicholas Sprimont turned from Meissen toward Sèvres as its model and produced richly gilded See less