Vase cover
Melchior d'Hondecoeter (Utrecht 1636 - Amsterdam 1695)
Category
Ceramics
Date
1765
Materials
Porcelain
Measurements
8 x 7.5 cm
Place of origin
Chelsea
Order this imageCollection
Upton House, Warwickshire
NT 446369.2
Summary
Cover to a jar, from a seven-piece garniture of pot-pourri jars (‘perfume pots’), soft-paste porcelain, pear-shaped on four scroll feet with two pierced scroll-handles, pierced neck and cover, the reserved panels on a crimson (or claret) coloured ground with foliate tooled gilding are painted in polychrome enamels, the front with Jupiter disguised as satyr lusting after the sleeping nymph Antiope, here in the guise of Diana, goddess of the hunt, identified by the crescent moon she wears as a diadem and the trophies of the Chase, a bow and arrows, the reverse with birds after the Dutch artist Melchior de Hondecoeter (1636-95), maker's mark a gold anchor mark; Chelsea, London, England, circa 1763-4. The scene depicts 'Le Repos de Diane' after Boucher, engraved by Jean Pelletier (Jean Richard 1454). The depictions of farmyard fowl and pheasants in formal landscapes, including peacocks and turkeys in the 17th-century manner of Melchior de Hondecoeter (1636-95) or Francis Barlow (1626-1704), may have been based on engravings, such as the latter’s Multae et diversae avium species, London, 1650-55, or those by Joseph Sympson (1710-50) after paintings by Marmaduke Craddock (c.1660-1716), published in 1741-3. (Ferguson, 2014) Provenance: 'Said to have been for George III as a present to Lady Cope on her marriage in 1767 and subsequently in the possesion of Lord Dudley, hence their title 'The Dudley Vases''.
Makers and roles
Melchior d'Hondecoeter (Utrecht 1636 - Amsterdam 1695), painter
