Page 43 - Chinese Export Art Christie's New York, Jan 21, 2016

THE MILLER COLLECTION

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A VERY RARE GRISAILLE ‘LONDON HOSPITAL’ BOWL
SECOND HALF 18TH CENTURY

A continuous scene shows ‘London Hospital’ with shepherds and
their fock in the foreground as various carriages and strolling fgures
pass by, the interior with a European gentleman walking on a country
path beside his small dog, all beneath a gilt scroll-and-shell border

15æ in. (40 cm.) diameter

$20,000-30,000

PROVENANCE:

With Staal & Sons, London.
Acquired from Elinor Gordon, Pennsylvania, in 1996.

LITERATURE:

M. Beurdeley, Chinese Trade Porcelain, p. 191; Hervouet & Bruneau,
La Porcelaine des Compagnie des Indes a Decor Occidental, p. 240.

This very rare bowl, called ‘probably unique’ by Hervouet, depicts
the hospital’s new building in Whitechapel designed by Boulton
Mainwaring and begun in 1752. Founded in 1740 - one of fve
major private charity hospitals to arise in a uniquely English effort
in the 18th century - London Hospital was intended to serve the
sick and injured poor of the East End, particularly factory workers,
seamen and their families. George Parker, 2nd Earl of Macclesfeld
and son of Thomas Parker, Lord High Chancellor, headed the
committee overseeing the building project. The Earl’s second wife
had a Chinese armorial dinner service; the Earl’s sister, Elizabeth,
married Sir William Heathcote in 1720, when they ordered the
well-known Heathcote-Parker dinner service. It seems likely that
either one of these family members or another aristocratic patron of
the hospital ordered this magnifcent bowl.

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