Lot 144. A London delftware puzzle posset pot, dated 1674; 13.5cm high, 26cm wide across the handles. Estimate £ 12,000 - 18,000 (€ 13,000 - 20,000). © Bonhams.

Bearing the arms of the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors, the cylindrical vessel applied with two most-elaborate handles and two slender, tubular spouts serving separate chambers, painted in blue, one side with the armorial shield of the Merchant Taylors and a cartouche inscribed W/T E 1674, both within foliate scroll mantling, the reverse with two panels of flowering plants inspired by Chinese porcelain, both sprays flanked by flying insects and with a snail on an upper leaf.

Provenance: With Jellinek and Sampson
John P. Kassebaum, Sotheby's sale 1 October 1991, lot 13
Syd Levethan, Longridge Collection, Christie's sale 25 May 2011, lot 148.

Literature: Illustrated by Lipski and Archer, Dated English Delftware (1984), p.204, fig.903, and by Leslie B. Grigsby, the Longridge Collection of English Slipware and Delftware (2000), fig.D275.

Note: This posset bears a simplified version of the arms of the Merchant Taylors' Company with a decorative shell in place of the Company's crest of a lamb. On two other London delftware vessels, a caudle cup of 1688 and a mug of 1694, the potters chose to leave out the supporters, crest and motto of the Company and just placed the shield among leaf-scroll mantling, see Lipski and Archer, op.cit., p.177. A posset pot in Colonial Williamsburg, dated 1676 depicts the arms of another London company, the Carpenters, within a very similar leaf-scroll and shell cartouche (Lipski and Archer, fig.904). Also in Williamsburg, a mug dated 1674, clearly by the same hand as the present lot, combines the arms of the Salters' Company with almost identical flowering plants complete with a snail (Lipski & Archer, fig.776).

Although puzzle jugs take many different forms, it is exceptional to find a Posset pot created as a puzzle vessel. One spout functions normally to suck the contents from the posset pot, while the second spout opens into a secret chamber filled from the base. No similar example is recorded.

Bonhams London. The Olive Collection, 31 Jan 2019