A pair of 'Girl-in-a-Swing' porcelain and tole peint-mounted candlesticks, circa 1755, Charles Gouyn's factory, St. James's

Lot Closed

January 14, 04:20 PM GMT

Estimate

12,000 - 18,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Property of Lord Ralph Kerr

A pair of 'Girl-in-a-Swing' porcelain and tole peint-mounted candlesticks

circa 1755, Charles Gouyn's factory, St. James's

each similarly modelled with a seated hound, both turned to the right, on mound base, supported by a painted metal rocaille base issuing a branch, applied with white porcelain flowerheads and painted metal leaves, each with a brass nozzle and drip pan

21.5cm. high, 23.9cm wide; 8 1/5 in., 9 1/8 in.

Anon, Inventory of Furniture and Effects at Melbourne Hall, [ref.168-13-3 Melbourne Archive] 25 March 1858, p.1. in the Drawing Room, 'Two bronze candlesticks with Figures of Dogs'.

Anon, Inventory of Fixtures, Furniture, Books, Pictures, Tools, etc., [ref.168-9 Melbourne Archive] 12 July 1897, probably, '2 white metal and China candelbra [sic]'.

Porcelain figures of this distinctive and naive modeling were traditionally cataloged under the collective term 'Girl-in-a-Swing', named so after the well-known figure gifted by Lt.-Col. K. Dingwall to the Victoria and Albert museum, London (mus. no. C.587-1922). Porcelain scholars had long suspected the group was linked to the French Huguenot Charles Gouyn, and this was finally confirmed in the paper by Bernard Dragesco 'English Ceramics in French Archives - The Writings of Jean Helliot, the Adventures of Jacques Louis Brolliet and the Identification of the 'Girl-in-a-Swing' factory', London, June 1993.

Gouyn was born in Dieppe, France, and by 1736 was established in London as a jeweler in Bennet Street, St. James. He was briefly involved with Nicholas Sprimont's porcelain factory at Chelsea, though he parted ways in about 1747/48 to begin his rival enterprise in St. James, where porcelain production seems likely to have lasted until about 1760.