A rare and Fine Chelsea Porcelain Sunflower Leaf Shaped Dessert Dish, beautifully naturalistically modelled in crisp low relief the radiating bloom with brown seeded centre surrounded by over lapping yellow tinged petals and modelled lying between two green leaves with yellow and puce veining, one stalk formed as the handle to one side.

Chelsea Sunflowers and their Leaf shaped dessert dishes are mentioned in the 1755, Chelsea Sale of Mr Ford at his Great Room at the Haymarket. Third day’s sale, March 12th lot 31, ‘Four large sun flower leaves and four sunflowers ditto.’ Similar examples were in the Nelson Rockefeller and John Dorrance collections. Paul and Bunny Mellon also adored this shape, that has its root in design from the Meissen examples that were perhaps within Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams’s collection that was stored at Henry Fox’s House at Holland House. These items were viewed and borrowed by Nicholas Sprimont and his modellers to further add to the repertoire of organic designs already emanating from the Chelsea Porcelain Manufactory after its move to the Lawrence Street premises.

Marks:   Rare and Unusually large Anchor mark picked out in red enamel