A Highly Important Early Chelsea Porcelain Red Squirrel, of the Incised Triangle Period, highly naturalistically modelled seated on its haunches nibbling a nut and set on an irregularly moulded base, the head with characteristic long tufted ears and it’s head looking to the viewer as if startled. Applied with a long feathered scrolling tail joined to the contours of its back.

This very rare and highly naturalistic model appears to be the fourth example recorded and all are left modelled in the white.

1. One example is within the great English porcelain collection of H.J.Hyams at Ramsbury Manor, in the little Chinese room.
2. Another in the British Museum from the collection of Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks collection, compared to the paste of the dated example of the child sleeping and therefore included in the special exhibition at the International Ceramics Fair and Seminar 1987 catalogue, ‘Eighteenth Century English Porcelain from the British Museum’, no. 2.
3. The example at Colonial Williamsburg, illustrated by John Austin, ‘Chelsea Porcelain at Williamsburg, p. 113, no. 104.

What is undoubtedly one of the rarest forms in English porcelain and could have been commissioned by one of the great naturalists such as Sir Hans Sloane, or his like, who lived nearby at Cheyne Manor. The models should also be compared with the Incised triangle period models of the Owls that date from this period and appear to be by the same skilled modeller.