Redecorated Worcester First Period Trio Ex Rous Lench Made 1770

Description

Heading : A Worcester First Period Porcelain Trio
Date : c1770. re-fired c1855
Period : George III
Marks : Underglaze blue square seal marks. Also applied collector’s labels for Rous Lench No2 Worcester and Whiteley Tolson No502
Origin : Worcester. England
Colour : Polychrome and gilt
Pattern : Later redecorated with richly radiating claret panels and interspaced detail with dense floral blooms
Features : Cup with wrap over stalk handle
Condition : Cup with some re-firing issues to the top rim otherwise good
Restoration : None
Dimensions : Saucer 13.8cm. tea bowl 8.3 diameter. coffee cup height 5.6cm
Weight : 242 grams

Eric Knowles Comments

For a tea bowl and saucer with this same design and a discussion of such later decoration See: The Marshall Collection of Worcester Porcelain in the Ashmolean Museum Vol II. pages 638. and 647. plate 1092.This teacup and saucer belongs to a group of porcelains that were to be included in such important  collections such as The Lady Ludlow. now in the Bowes Museum at Barnard Castle. Frank Lloyd. Wallace Elliot and Robert Drane.

Present day scholarship suggests that the masterly. yet later. redecoration of such examples took place between 1850-1860 in order to satisfy the demand for highly decorated pieces and allied to the use new low temperature-coloured enamels whilst this tea cup displays evidence of such re-firing on the tea cup.

The Rous Lench collection label has me mindful of a visit to the splendid black and white timbered mansion about 40 years ago together with my long-time friend and Antiques Roadshow colleague Henry Sandon. Here we met the somewhat eccentric owner. and avid collector. Tom Burn who had been given the Jacobean building. together with a Rolls Royce and several servants. as a 21st Birthday present by his wealthy father sometime in the 1930’s.