Fergus Gambon
Director
Lot 89*
A Staffordshire slipware dish attributed to John Simpson, circa 1715
5 June 2019, 10:30 BST
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £3,812.50 inc. premium
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Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
A Staffordshire slipware dish attributed to John Simpson, circa 1715
Of octagonal shape, press-moulded in relief with a design of four ripe pomegranates and a similar number of fleur-de-lys motifs encircling a central carnation, the moulding picked out in dark chocolate brown against the cream-coloured ground, indistinct initials I S probably moulded below, the border trailed with lines and dots and stamped with tiny circles, 37cm wide
Footnotes
Provenance
Private Collection, Japan
Exhibited
The Japan Folk Crafts Museums, Osaka 13 September-14 December 2003 and Tokyo 7 January-28 March 2004
Toyota City Folk Crafts Museum, 1 June-29 August 2004
The initials I S embossed on most examples of this design suggests that the maker was John Simpson of Burslem. The probable date of manufacture is implied by two examples that are further inscribed in the borders with the date 1715. One of these dated dishes, in the Longridge Collection is illustrated by Leslie B. Grigsby, The Longridge Collection of English Slipware and Delftware (2000), Vol.1, cat. no.S33. The other is in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, object no. 78-11.
A probable source for the design is an English wallpaper dating from circa 1670 that shows a remarkably similar arrangement of pomegranates and fleur-de-lys around a central carnation. See the paper by Dr Darron Dean, English Slipware Design 1600-1720, ECC Transactions, Vol.17, Pt.2, p.238.
Significant variations within the design of slipware dishes of this type show that a number of different moulds must have been used. Related examples are in many collections including Colonial Williamsburg, Chipstone, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the V & A and the Fitzwilliam Museum. See also Ronald G. Cooper, English Slipware Dishes (1968), pls.278-281.
