Vase cover
Melchior d'Hondecoeter (Utrecht 1636 - Amsterdam 1695)
Category
Ceramics
Date
1765
Materials
Porcelain
Measurements
8 x 9.5 cm
Place of origin
Chelsea
Order this imageCollection
Upton House, Warwickshire
NT 446369.8
Summary
Cover to a jar, from a seven-piece garniture of pot-pourri jars, soft-paste porcelain, inverted pear-shaped on four scroll feet with two pierced scroll-handles, pierced neck and cover, the reserved panels on a crimson-coloured ground with tooled floral gilding painted in polychrome enamels with a disheveled Alpheus, a river god, smiles lovingly as he embraces a vaporous cloud which supports a startled nymph, Arethusa, and her companion, Artemis, a moon goddess, an amorino holds a torch above them, the reverse with peacock, turkey and other birds in the manner of the Dutch artist Melchior de Hondecoeter (1636-95), maker's mark a gold anchor mark; Chelsea, London, England, circa 1763-4. The image faithfully copies an engraving entitled ‘Alphée et Aréthuse’ by Étienne Fessard (1714-74) after a painting by Pierre-Charles Trémolières, which was announced in the ‘Mercure de France’ in October 1737 at the time of its publication. The same scene, though somewhat altered, later appeared on a Vase ‘à têtes de sphinx’, c. 1773, in the Wallace Collection, and a seau ‘à verre’ in the Louis XVI service, 1783 (R. Savill, ‘The Wallace Collection: Catalogue of Sèvres Porcelain ’, 1988, vol. I, p. 418). The composite 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), Multae et diversae avium species, London, 1650-55, were possibly also based on engravings 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 possession of Lord Dudley, hence their title “The Dudley Vases”'.
Makers and roles
Melchior d'Hondecoeter (Utrecht 1636 - Amsterdam 1695), painter
