Part dinner service
Category
Ceramics
Date
1765 - 1770
Materials
Porcelain, Gilt, Enamels
Measurements
57 mm (Height); 339 mm (Diameter)
Place of origin
Jingdezhen
Order this imageCollection
Uppark House and Garden, West Sussex
NT 137408
Summary
Part armorial dinner service. Porcelain decorated in a European pattern with an arabesque design in reserve on a thick blue ground border with gilt details and the arms of the Fetherstonhuagh impaling Lethieullier. Gules a Chevron between three ostrich feathers argent, impaling Lethieullier, Argent a chevron gules between three parrots' heads couped vert beaked of the second. Jingdezhen, China Qianlong Period, about 1765-70.
Full description
About 1765, Sir Mathew Fetherstonhaugh and his wife Sarah, Lady Fetherstonhaugh, ordered two Chinese armorial porcelain tableware services, and drinking mugs for London or possibly Uppark (NT/UPP/C/6, 92). Armorial services were usually ordered to commemorate a recent marriage, however, these services were made almost 20 years after Sir Matthew married Sarah in 1746, daughter of Christopher Lethieullier (1676–1736) of Belmont in Middlesex, a director of the Bank of England. The Lethieullier family is known to have ordered at least three armorial services.[1] The design, similar on the dinner and dessert services, was based on a European pattern with an arabesque border centering the arms of Fetherstonhaugh impaling Lethieullier, Gules a chevron between three ostrich feathers argent, impaling Lethieullier, Argent a chevron gules between three parrots’ head couped vert beaked of the second. One service is painted with the design in reserve on a thick blue ground border with gilt details and an enameled armorial and the other presumably a common service was in underglaze blue only. Perhaps the underglaze blue service was for Uppark and the enameled service intended for his grand London residence, Fetherstonhaugh House in Whitehall, built by James Paine. Dinners at Fethstonhaugh House, conveniently located near the House of Commons, with luxurious plate, Chinese export or Chelsea services and a dessert surtout displayed with Meissen and Chelsea figures would have been exceedingly grand. In 1870, Lady Fetherstonhaugh presented a tureen from the service to the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (49-B-1870). [1] David Sanctuary Howard, Chinese Armorial Porcelain, Volume I, London, 1974, R12, p. 605.