Pair of Derby models of Florentine Boars, Derby, c.1750-54 (Planché period)
An extremely rare pair of Derby ‘Dry Edge’ Florentine Boars. One with its head turned to the left, on an oblong base, its left forepaw slightly lifted and its belly attached to a support in the form of a tree trunk adorned with applied oak leaves and acorns which extend into the tree base. The other, with its head turned to the right, seated on an oval base, with similarly applied ornament. The bases are unglazed underneath and are pierced right through with one ‘countersunk’ hole respectively.
These early porcelain models, the work of Andrew Planché embody the most outstanding examples of early English sculptural figure modelling. They have the vitality and spontaneity of the best Continental figures.
The boars are based on the antique marble statue known as ‘The Florentine Boar’ in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
The title pages of Francis Barlow’s “Aesop’s Fables”, London 1665, contains a similar boar.
Provenance
Private Collection.Exhibitions
The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1987-1991.Literature
cf:
Aileen Dawson, Rare and Documentary Eighteenth Century English Porcelain from The British Museum exhibited at The International Ceramics Fair & Seminar, June 1987. p.33, fig.38 for similar coloured pair.
R.L. Hobson, Catalogue of English Porcelain, London, 1905, I.28 and 29.
- King, ‘English Porcelain at the British Museum I –
Early Derby’, “Country Life” 19th January 1929, p.99, fig.3.
- Brayshaw Gilhespy, Derby Porcelain, London 1965, ed., fig.4.
D.G. Rice, Derby Porcelain, The Golden Years 1750-1770, Newton Abbot, London and New York, 1983, pl.27; base of I.28 illus., fig.150B; see p.181.