Water bottle, Qianlong c.1755, with the arms of Rodeley
A finely decorated and rare armorial water bottle, or guglet, 10 inches tall: two sides with the arms of Rodeley and the other two with a Chinese scene of a lady with an abacus, holding a fan, and speaking with a man outside a window.
By the mid 1750s such figure paintings were no longer based on traditional narrative scenes from literature, but were skillful designs by the porcelain painters emulating the old story scenes. They were very popular on export and armorial porcelain in this decade, and this same scene, with an identical border of blue enamel and gold scrollwork, appears on just one other armorial service made for Augustus Fitzroy, 3rd Duke of Grafton (he would later order another very elaborate service with the arms of his second wife while Prime Minister). Most of the Grafton service is still at Euston Hall, and there may have been a family link with this Rodeley service; they would certainly have been ordered in the same Canton season.
This service is tentatively identified in Vol I of Chinese Armorial Porcelain as ’Deane’, as a result of one of the colours being incorrectly recorded. But a large pre-war handwritten label by Cecil Bullivant (see image) on the base of the bottle makes clear that these are in fact the arms of Rodeley, which is correct, while an accompanying written letter of provenance by the 1944 purchaser (for 25 guineas) lists the subsequent owners until the later 1950s.
Condition : Very good condition, excellent enamels and gilding
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