Museum number
C431A
C431B
Object
Teapot with lid, part of a set, Tournai Porcelain Factory, soft-paste porcelain, about 1765
Description
Tea pot and cover, French, Tournai, c. 1765. Soft-paste porcelain decorated in enamel colours with gilding. Part of a cabaret with C 428, 430, 429. The pot with scroll handle highlighted with gilding, as is the spout, the body painted on iether side with scenes of exotic birds on rocks and in branches, the cover with scroll handle highlighted in gilding, gilt rim, and painted with three birds.
Materials
Porcelain
Inscription
Tournai cipher in gold
On display?
Yes

Further description

Simple name
Drinking Accessories
Lid
Subject
Birds
Dimensions
regular: 17.3cm (d) x 9.5cm (h) x 13.0cm (w)
Teapot, teacup and saucer and covered sugar bowl Tournai Porcelain Factory Soft-paste porcelain, about 1765 C429, C430 & C431 Along with flowers, birds provided rich decorative subject matter for eighteenth-century porcelain painters. Broadly painted imaginary birds, derived from Chinese phoenixes, were known as ho ho birds. Today they are sometimes categorised as Exotic, Fabulous, Dishevelled, Aggressive or Agitated depending on their appearance. Real birds were copied from engravings in books such as Georges-Louis-Leclerc Buffon’s Natural History of Birds (1771).

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