Beschreibung:

An extensive Zürich botanical and lepidopterous part tea-service Circa 1770, blue Z marks to all pieces except hot-milk jug and teacaddy, some pieces also with two blue dots, some with single blue dot, various incised and impressed marks Exquisitely painted with butterflies including a swallowtail, gatekeeper, marbled-white, cabbage-white, purple emperor, a blue and a brimstone, moths, flowers, nuts, fruit including cherries, pears, strawberries, rasperries, gooseberries, sloes, grapes, peaches, red-currants, and vegetables including sweet-peas, carrots, turnips, onions and garlic, with gilt dentil rims, comprising: An arched rectangular teacaddy and cover, the cylindrical cover with puce flower finial (slight flaking to enamels) An ogival oval spoon-tray (flaking to enamels) A baluster hot-milk jug and a shallow-domed cover, the jug with triple-scroll handle and scroll and scale-moulded spout, the handle with chain attachment (slight flaking to enamels, cover with small shallow chip adjacent to rim and minute chipping to leaf terminal of finial) A sugar-basin and domed cover, the cover with a flower finial (minute flaking to enamels and minute wear to gilding) A slop-basin (minute wear to gilding) Twelve teabowls of varying sizes and ten saucers, one teabowl possibly painted by a different hand, (wear to gilt rims throughout, some teabowls with slight wear to enamels, one with small restored rim chip, another with restored footrim, others with minor faults, majority of saucers with wear to centres, some with minute wear, one with very small area of re-touching to gilt rim)