A RARE PAIR OF BOW DRAGON-HANDLED SAUCEBOATS

A RARE PAIR OF BOW DRAGON-HANDLED SAUCEBOATS

C.1750

each of oval silver shape moulded with floral swags to the sides and garlands to the foot, the handle formed as a dragon perched on the rim supporting itself on a pair of wings and its tail with trefoil feathering, its mouth slightly open baring its tongue and teeth, highlighted with gilt flowering foliage to the sides and a border of demi-lunes and dots to the interior rim, one with a patch of copper green showing to the side of the foot (2)

19.8cm long, 16.5cm high

Catalogue Note

Bonhams, Fine Glass and British Ceramics, 19th November 2025, lot 140 for a similar example formerly in the Raymond Yarbrough and Anton Gabszewicz Collections.

Bonhams, A Life in Ceramics: The Peter and Mary White Collection, Part II, lot 59 and Fine Glass and British Ceramics, 20th November 2019, lot 180 for single white examples.

Literature

Raymond C Yarborough, Bow Porcelain and the London Theatre, Color Plate V, top right image for another pair of sauceboats and page 106 for a discussion of the probable originals of the design of these sauceboats including a photograph of a near contemporary silver sauceboat with a dragon or wyvern handle.

Anton Gabszewicz, 'Rococo Bow Porcelain', in Charles Dawson (ed.), Scrolls of Fantasy, The Rococo Ceramics in England (2015), p.156, fig.5.

Frank Hurlbutt, Bow Porcelain, 1926, plate 5 for a further example and a related discussion on page 86.