Fergus Gambon
Director
Lot 131
A rare Chelsea model of a bird, circa 1749-52
5 June 2019, 10:30 BST
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £11,937.50 inc. premium
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Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
A rare Chelsea model of a bird, circa 1749-52
Modelled perched on a woody stump, one wing folded and the other raised, its mouth open as if to sing, groups of leaves and tiny buds applied to the subsidiary branches just below, the plumage and head delicately coloured, foliate sprigs in green and black painted around the base, 13.5cm high, raised anchor mark picked out in red
Footnotes
Modelled directly from George Edwards, A Natural History of Uncommon Birds, and of Some Other Rare and Undescribed Animals, Vol.2, pl.84 (1747) depicting an Indian Green Finch perched on a branch with a butterfly in flight beside it. See Paul Crane, Nature, Porcelain and Enlightenment: George Edwards and the Chelsea Porcelain Birds, ECC Trans, Volume 28, 2017, p.57, fig.65. Another example from the Schreiber bequest at the Victoria and Albert Museum is shown at fig.66, its colouring closely copying the source print. The colouring of the present lot is different, the decorator perhaps without access to the source print. The distinctive sprigs around the base may suggest that decoration was carried out at an independent London workshop.
