John Sandon
Consultant
Lot 143
An exceptional London delftware 'bossed' tankard, dated 1653
31 January 2019, 11:00 GMT
London, New Bond StreetSold for £37,500 inc. premium
Looking for a similar item?
Our specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialistAsk about this lot
An exceptional London delftware 'bossed' tankard, dated 1653
Of tall cylindrical form tapering slightly inwards and decorated with 'bossed' ornament in neat rows, inscribed in blue on the front with a crowned cartouche inscribed B./G.W. 1653, flanked by scrollwork and with a grotesque mask below, 19cm high
Footnotes
Provenance:
6th Marquess of Bute, Christie's sale 5 December 1994, lot 3
Syd Levethan, Longridge Collection, Christie's sale 10 June 2010, lot 1047
Literature:
Illustrated by Leslie B. Grigsby, the Longridge Collection of English Slipware and Delftware (2000), fig.D235
Exhibited:
The Merchant's House, Marlborough, Wiltshire, 2010-2018
After throwing, the rows of small bosses were individually pushed through the soft clay to create a subtle and most pleasing effect. A specialty of the Southwark potters, bossed wares were mostly left in plain white, such as a white tankard of identical form also in the Longridge Collection and shown alongside the present lot in Leslie Grigsby's catalogue, p.263. A posset pot with similar bossing, in the Glaisher Collection in the Fitzwilliam Museum, is painted in blue with a related cartouche dated 1651, see Lipski and Archer, Dated English Delftware, fig.889 and also the Glaisher Collection Catalogue, pl.85b, fig.1319.
