Beschreibung:

Large Vauxhall Porcelain Figure of Britannia and a Corresponding Rococo Pedestal Circa 1758-60, unmarked Modeled seated reclining against a recumbent lion, wearing décolleté puce and floral decorated classical Roman garb and ship headdress, resting her left foot on a globe, a shield with 'Union Jack' in her right hand, a relief molded royal portrait medallion in her left, the scroll base with military trophies including: a helmet, the butt of a gun, a trumpet mouth, a standard and a coat-of-mail, the fine details picked out with gilding, the rocaille-molded scroll pedestal printed in brown and enriched in colors with a military scene perhaps depicting the Seven Years War (1756-1763), the scrollwork surround enriched in gilt, puce, iron-red and green. Height 15 1/2 inches . Provenance: Sotheby's London, 1972 With Winifred Williams Antiques, Eastbourne, Sussex Exhibited: Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC, October 2004 - January 2005 Britannia was the Roman personification of Britain, revived in the 17th century to represent the nation. For an example from the Harkness Collection identified as Longton Hall, see the Cleveland Museum of Art, accession no. 1917.626. For a similar example of this figure on stand, see the Cincinnati Art Museum, accession no. 1973.107. For a third example from the Hobson Collection, see the British Museum, no. 1887,0307,I.18. For an example from the Schreiber Collection, originally purchased as Bow, previously attributed to Longton Hall and now listed as Vauxhall, see the Victoria & Albert Museum, object no. 414:4/&A-1885. Here, the printed and enriched decoration listed as a Vauxhall innovation. Also see John Austin 'I-Porcelain', Ceramics in America, 2014, fig. 17 for the reattributions connected with the example at Colonial Williamsburg. For an in-depth article on the production of Britannia porcelain figures in the latter half of the 18th Century, see Margaret Zimmerman, American Ceramics Circle Journal XII, "To Please and to Instruct": Eighteenth-Century Porcelain Figures of Britannia, p. 81, fig. 8. Here the author studies the long evolution of Britannia as an emblem of Sovereignty and Patriotism and suggests two monuments by François Roubiliac (1695-1762) and a satirical print by William Hogarth (1697-1764) as potential design influences for the present model C Estate of Sarah Belk Gambrell
Overall excellent condition, minor chip to her ship headdress and to the top of the flag standrad, multiple firing cracks, two hairlines to the top of the base, and a large firing crack to the underside, mainly not visible when the figure is placed.