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Pot pourri

Ref: 2428
  • Maker

    Manufactured by ‘T. Cheney’

  • Detail

    Ceramic and ormolu

    Height: 23.5 cm

    English, circa 1809

  • Marked

    ‘T CHENEY LONDON / PUBLISHED / DEC 1 1809’

  • Notes

    Next to nothing is known of T. Cheney, who registered this elegant Regency design under the so-called Garrard Act (1798); for a discussion of this Act, see Desmond Fitz-Gerald, ‘A Sheraton designed bookcase and the Giannellis’, Victoria & Albert Museum Bulletin, 4.1 (January 1968), pp. 13-14.

    Cheney appears to have designed a range of lighting incorporating various tripod supports.  A page from an undated pattern book by G.A. Glick, reportedly in the National Art Library, has designs that appear to have been used by Cheney; see Jonathan Bourne and Vanessa Brett, Lighting in the Domestic Interior (1991), pl. 504 (reproduced, right).

    Pair of storm lamps, with bird supports, is with Fileman Antiques (October 2021) and a pair of candlesticks, with ‘seahorse’ supports was formerly with Freshfords Antiques.

    The present ‘seahorse’-supported pot pourri, designed in the French taste, appears to be the only recorded example of this model.

    We have not so far confirmed the origin of the contemporary enamelled ceramic bowl and cover, decorated in the Chinese taste.