CIRCA 1750-52

Details

A Bow Kakiemon circular two-handled soup-tureen and cover
Circa 1750-52
Painted in a vibrant Kakiemon palette with 'The Flaming Tortoise' pattern, with cranes strutting and in flight among prunus, flowering shrubs and scattered flower-sprays, the cover similarly-decorated about a dragon chasing it's own tail, within gilt spearhead-pattern borders, the brown branch handles and finial with elaborate female mask head terminals, their hair dressed with coloured flowers and flanked by moulded drapery (the tureen cracked round the lower part, through the base and riveted, some rubbing to handles and finial)
12½ in. (32 cm.) wide

Provenance

Almost certainly purchased by Thomas, 2nd Marquess of Bath (1765-1837), Longleat, Wiltshire and by descent at Longleat.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

The apparently eccentrically-named 'Flaming Tortoise' pattern refers to the Japanese legend of the Minogame, the Tortoise of a Thousand Years. One of the four principal supernatural animals (the others being the Tiger or Kirin, the Dragon, and the Phoenix, all of whom figure to some extent in various Kakiemon patterns) the tortoise was said to grow a tail when over five hundred years old, this fable probably being based on the fact that the shells of these turtles eventually become covered in long trailing water-weeds, the so-called 'flames' to which the pattern-name refers.

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