Pair of English Pearlware Bough Pots and Covers, Lion-Head Finials and Red Transfer-Printed Rural Scenes

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Pair of English Pearlware Bough Pots and Covers, Lion-Head Finials and Red Transfer-Printed Rural Scenes
Circa 1810–1820

This pair of … Read more Pair of English Pearlware Bough Pots and Covers, Lion-Head Finials and Red Transfer-Printed Rural Scenes
Circa 1810–1820

This pair of pearlware bough pots and covers is of demi-lune form, the flat backs made to stand against a wall or at either end of a mantelpiece, each raised on three bun feet. The curved front of each pot is divided by molded beaded pilasters into three panels transfer-printed in a warm brick red. The central panel shows a traveler with a staff and his dog walking toward a thatched cottage set beneath a rocky crag, with a blasted tree in the foreground, and it is flanked by panels of a wading bird standing on a rock at the water’s edge, with trees and banks of cloud beyond. Above the panels runs a molded frieze of oak leaves and acorns divided by rope-twist pilasters and small grotesque masks, beneath a scalloped rim.

The covers are the unusual feature of the pair. Each flat D-shaped cover is pierced with three circular apertures for the stems and is surmounted by three lion heads modeled in the round, with broad muzzles and flowing manes. The demi-lune bough pot with a molded oak-leaf, acorn and mask frieze is a recognized Staffordshire form of the period, and it is normally found with a plain pierced cover or with cylindrical bough holders; a cover mounted with lion heads is a rare and lively variation on the standard model. Bough pots of this form were made in pairs to be filled with cut flowering branches or forced spring bulbs, and it is uncommon to find a pair together with both covers surviving.

Made to be seen as a pair, the bough pots are best placed at either end of a mantelpiece, as they were intended, or flanking a mirror or lamp on a console or a pair of side tables, where their flat backs sit neatly against the wall. With small glass liners they can be planted with paperwhites or hyacinths in season, or left empty as a pair of decorative objects in a traditional or English country interior.

Dimensions:
Height: 6½ inches (16.5 cm)
Width: 7½ inches (19.1 cm)
Depth: 4¼ inches (10.8 cm)

Provenance:
Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge

Condition:
Good

References:
A single pearlware bough pot of this form, with the same molded oak-leaf, acorn and Bacchanalian-mask frieze, was appraised by Nicholas Dawes on Antiques Roadshow (PBS), Harrisburg, 2017, where it was dated to about 1810, attributed to Staffordshire, and described as one of a pair made to stand at either end of a mantelpiece.

A related English pearlware demi-lune bough pot of about 1800, with a triple-aperture cover, a frieze molded with masks, acorns and oak leaves, and three bun feet, was offered at Golding Young & Mawer, Lincolnshire.

A polychrome-painted Staffordshire pearlware bough pot of the same demi-lune form and closely similar size, with a removable three-stem cover, an oak-leaf and acorn molded edge and bun feet, 6 inches high, was offered at Skinner, Americana online sale 3259T, lot 1468.

Historical Context:
Bough pots were made in England from the second half of the eighteenth century for holding cut flowering boughs and, from the Regency period, for forcing spring bulbs such as hyacinths through the apertures of a pierced cover. The demi-lune form was made in pairs for the mantelpiece, and its fragility means that examples with their covers intact are scarce. Pearlware, the cobalt-whitened earthenware introduced by Wedgwood as “Pearl White” in 1779 and quickly adopted throughout the Staffordshire potteries, was the standard body for such wares by 1800. Underglaze printing in colors other than blue, including this brick red, came into general use in the second and third decades of the nineteenth century, which places this pair in the later Regency years. The lion, England’s national beast and a favorite ornament of the period, appears here in place of the more usual plain cover.

(Ref: NY11269-nirr) See less