Live Auction 10397Centuries of Style: Silver, European Ceramics, Portrait Miniatures and Gold Boxes
AN ENGLISH DELFTWARE 'ACT OF UNION' PLATE
Lot 99

AN ENGLISH DELFTWARE 'ACT OF UNION' PLATE

CIRCA 1707-14, PROBABLY VAUXHALL

Closed3 June 2015

Price Realised

GBP 11,250

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AN ENGLISH DELFTWARE 'ACT OF UNION' PLATE
CIRCA 1707-14, PROBABLY VAUXHALL
Painted in blue, green, yellow and iron-red with an entwined stylised rose and thistle beneath a crown flanked by the initials AR within a border of concentric blue circles and a yellow band (very slight flaking to rim)
9 in. (23 cm.) diam.

Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 22 October 1974, lot 78.
With Jellinek & Sampson Antiques, London, from whom it was acquired on 24 October 1974.
The Hon. Simon Sainsbury; sale, 'Simon Sainsbury: The Creation of an English Arcadia', Christie's, London, 18 June 2008, lot 84.

Specialist note

The passing of the Act of Union in 1707 united England and Scotland under one parliament and it was commemorated in English delftware on a series of mugs and plates showing the thistle of Scotland and the rose of England united under one crown. See Aileen Dawson, English and Irish Delftware 1570-1840, London, 2010, pp. 62-63, no. 17 for a plate painted by a very close hand to the present example. Plates with the AR inscription continued to be made throughout Queen Anne's reign, with similar designs also being used during George I's reign. Michael Archer and Brian Morgan illustrate both an AR example and a GR plate, see Fair as China Dishes, English Delftware From the Collection of Mrs. Marion Morgan and Brian Morgan, Washington, D.C., 1977, p. 73, no. 46 & p. 78, no. 52. See also Frank Britton, London Delftware, London, 1986, p. 142, no. 119 for a similar plate painted with the initials GR.