Covered Butter Tub

Date1765-1770

Maker Worcester Porcelain Manufactory

MediumPorcelain, soft-paste

DimensionsOH: 4"; OL: 5"; OW: 4"

Credit LineGift of Mr. Samuel M. Clarke

Object number1993-284,1A&B

DescriptionCovered butter tub or tureen with stand of blue-ish glaze over warm white body with integrally molded cartouche reserves. With blue scale ground (unusually). The oval stand with gently flaring rim over glazed triangular foot ring. The tub or tureen oval with slight thickening at upper rim from straight sides with integral rectangular foot ring. The tub of slightly irregular shape from movement during firing. The cover slightly domed with acorn and oak-leaf shaped finial and small projecting flange; the contact points between cover and tub unglazed. The tub, stand, and cover decorated comparably. The cover with 2 horizontal and two vertical mirror-shaped reserves and four triangular reserves with large green leaves and red berries. The tub with 2 long horizontal and two vertical mirror cartouches. The stand with central oval reserve and with two horizontal and two vertical mirror-shaped reserves, extending from the cavetto onto the rim. The mirror-shaped reserves all decorated comparably, with scenes of foliage, stylized flowers, stumps, fencing ruins, and grass in colors of yellow, red, blue, green, and gilt. The central reserve of the stand with standing green and yellow bird placidly confronting a blue and red dragon that is twined around a flowering tree stump. Both before two stacks of grain, below a scraggly tree with oversize red flowers. The reserves bordered in thin gilt bands accenting the modelled edges. The decoration of the reserves very much in the Japanese style, via Meissen.
Inscribedno
MarkingsSquare fret in underglaze blue to bottom of tub and to bottom of stand.
ProvenanceEx. Coll: Stoner and Evans, London
Ex. Coll: Christopher Taylor
with Phillips, Chester, 15 July 1983
Albert Amor Ltd., London, July 1983
Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Clarke (Acc. No. 415)

Exhibition(s)