A pair of Chelsea porcelain mazarine-blue-ground pot-pourri vases, c.1760-65, gold anchor mark...

A pair of Chelsea porcelain mazarine-blue-ground pot-pourri vases, c.1760-65, gold anchor mark to one, traces of mark to other, the oviform bodies each with four raised arched panels painted by James Giles, with exotic birds in landscapes enclosed by gilt foliage cartouches below elaborate pierced necks, the tapering lower parts on four foliate feet, 16.5cm high (2)

Note: The form of this vase was developed from a Vincennes model by Jean-Claude Duplessis which was called a ‘pot pourri à jour’. See John Mallet, ‘Chelsea Gold Anchor Vases’ in the English Ceramics Circle Transactions, 1999, Vol. 17, part 1, pl. 6 for a vase of similar form. It is this form of vase which features in the portrait of Nicholas Sprimont, the proprietor of the Chelsea manufactory, and his wife. Mallet, ibid., p. 126 discusses this vase shape and suggests that the form may have brought to England by Flanchet, as he was a pupil of Duplessis, who modelled the original at Vincennes.