The Susan Beazley Collection - Lots 93-120

A rare pair of Chelsea white porcelain figures of boys...

The Susan Beazley Collection - Lots 93-120

A rare pair of Chelsea white porcelain figures of boys playing musical instruments, c.1747-49, modelled after François Duquesnoy (Il Fiammingo, 1597-1643), as a boy playing a reed pipe and another playing a tambourine, each seated on a rocky mound, before an oak tree applied with leaves and acorns, on a rectangular base, 16.2cm and 18.3cm high (2)

Provenance: The Susan Beazley collection.

Note: Only a small number of Triangle period Chelsea candlestick figures of this type are known. Zorka Hodgson discusses the origins of the model of the ‘Boy Piper’ in her article ‘Chelsea Boy’s Head after François Duquesnoy-Il Fiammingo’, English Ceramic Circle Transactions, 1994, Vol. 15, Pt. 2, p.184-189. She suggests that the piper was modelled after the Flemish sculptor François Duquesnoy’s (Il Fiammingo, 1597-1643) basso-relievo ‘Concert of Angels’ (1640-42) which was produced in marble for Borromini’s Altar of the Capella Filomarino in SS Apostoli, Naples. Eight putti are depicted, including a piper in a similar pose to the Chelsea model (see Hodgson, ibid., figs. 6 & 7, pp. 187-188). Although the boy with a tambourine does not appear amongst the putti in the ‘Concert of Angels’, the similarity of the pose and modelling to the piper boy would suggest that he is also likely to have been modelled after Il Fiammingo.
In his article ‘The Clue of the Oak Leaf, Its Place in Identifying Unrecorded Triangle Period Chelsea’, Frank Tilley discusses the early UV analysis and subsequent attribution of a small group of Chelsea Triangle period porcelain, all of which are applied with oak leaves in a similar style. Tilley compares two piper boy candlestick figures (one of which is complete with the tree, candleholder and sconce), alongside a pair of birds on tree stumps and a Triangle period Goat and Bee jug (Kaufman Collection), all of which are applied with oak leaves similar to those on seen on the present figures (see Frank Tilley, ‘The Clue of the Oak Leaf’,  Antique Collector, XXI, 1950, pp. 13-15 and figs. 2 & 2 for the two models of the piper boys).
A handful of models of the Chelsea Boy with a Reed Pipe, are known: one in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (lacking the tree candlestick, accession no. C.60-1927), another in the Katz Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (with part of the tree remaining, accession no. 1988.770). Anton Gabszewicz notes these in his article Influence of the Baroque on English Porcelain, Fire and Form -the Baroque and its Influence on English Ceramics, c. 1660-1760, Seminar 26 – 27 March 2011, English Ceramics Circle Transactions, 2013, pp. 218-219, fig. 25. Another two are illustrated by Frank Tilley in his aforementioned article, including the only recorded complete example (Theodore Barclay Collection), and another, with part of the tree remaining, with Tilley & Co (see Tilley, ibid, p. 13). Two figures of the boy with a tambourine were offered by Sotheby’s, London, 19 November 1991, lots 210 & 211 (the latter complete with candlestick).
Other related Triangle and Raised Anchor period models after Il Fiammingo include the nude child asleep on a mattress with the incised date ‘June ye 26^th 1746’ in the collection of the British Museum, London, accession no. 1938,0314.96.CR, of which bronze and ivory models are also known. The handful of models of the bust of a boy’s head are discussed by Zorka Hodgson in her aforementioned article, such as the example in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, also noted by F. Severne Mackenna in her book Chelsea Porcelain, The Triangle and Raised Anchor Wares, London, 1948, no. 83. Arthur Lane records two Raised Anchor period children seated on rocks, sold by Sotheby’s, London on 18 May 1954, lot 138 (see English porcelain Figures of the 18^th Century, London, 1961, pp. 58-59, and also pl. 2B for the piper boy in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London). A Raised Anchor period model of a boy seated on rockwork before a tree, holding a shell, is in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (accession no. C.2-1992).