Tennants Auctioneers
Lot 2179
each piece of gourd or melon form, applied with chrysanthemums and foliage, with bamboo-cast handle, comprising: a teapot, the hinged cover with realistic melon or gourd stem-cast finial, the handle ivory-insulated; a cream-jug and a sugar-bowl, in fitted wood case with sliding cover; TOGETHER WITH: an associated pair of sugar-tongs, apparently unmarked, applied with prunus flowers and foliagethe teapot 24.3cm wide over handle, the case 35.6cm wide, total gross weight 29oz 8dwt, 914grFootnote: This service compares in form and decoration to another by Luen Wo which is illustrated by A. von Ferscht in his extensive work Chinese Export Silver 1785-1940 The Definitive Collectors Guide, 4th Edition, 2015, unpaginated. That service is described by von Ferscht as ‘…. Undoubtedly one of the finest late 19th-century Chinese silver sets I’ve ever seen’. He notes that the gourd was associated in Chinese culture with fertility and that such services were given as wedding gifts. The finial on this teapot presents a departure from those on many other Chinese examples, including the above-mentioned example, in that it is more realistically cast than other examples, which are usually more basically realised. The wood box also helps this service to stand out. Of a service by Lao Tian Bao which also includes a box von Ferscht notes ‘Often these cases were as much an art piece as the tea set they contained; this particular one should be perceived as a rare piece of folk art as this box tells us much about the aesthetic mindset of the period.’Tennants are grateful to Adrien von Ferscht for his assistance in identifying the marks.Condition report: The teapot, cream-jug and sugar-bowl each marked with maker's mark LW twice and with Chinese character artisan mark. There is some surface scratching and wear, consistent with age and use. The sugar-tongs are associated to the set and do not fit properly into the space in the box. There is some scratching and wear to the case. The lid is slightly ill-fitting.
