Lot 143. An exceptional London delftware 'bossed' tankard, dated 1653; 19cm high. Estimate £ 30,000 - 40,000 (€ 33,000 - 44,000). © Bonhams.

Of tall cylindrical form tapering slightly inwards and decorated with 'bossed' ornament in neat rows, inscribed in blue on the front with a crowned cartouche inscribed B./G.W. 1653, flanked by scrollwork and with a grotesque mask below.

Provenance: 6th Marquess of Bute, Christie's sale 5 December 1994, lot 3
Syd Levethan, Longridge Collection, Christie's sale 10 June 2010, lot 1047.

Literature: Illustrated by Leslie B. Grigsby, the Longridge Collection of English Slipware and Delftware (2000), fig.D235.

Exhibited: The Merchant's House, Marlborough, Wiltshire, 2010-2018.

Note: After throwing, the rows of small bosses were individually pushed through the soft clay to create a subtle and most pleasing effect. A specialty of the Southwark potters, bossed wares were mostly left in plain white, such as a white tankard of identical form also in the Longridge Collection and shown alongside the present lot in Leslie Grigsby's catalogue, p.263. A posset pot with similar bossing, in the Glaisher Collection in the Fitzwilliam Museum, is painted in blue with a related cartouche dated 1651, see Lipski and Archer, Dated English Delftware, fig.889 and also the Glaisher Collection Catalogue, pl.85b, fig.1319.

Bonhams London. The Olive Collection, 31 Jan 2019.