Description:
English delft punch bowl decorated in blue with a mix of symbolic meanings, associations, and political sentiments. Presumably made to mark the marriage of Sarah Wilcock to George Jennings, the well has four masonic symbols: sun, moon, keystone, and set-square, with the initials and date, "I&W 1770", inside the triangle formed by the set-square. The names "GEORGE * and SARAH * JENINGS" are inscribed around the outer well, and the interior rim has an elaborate chinoiserie design of butterflies, scrolls, flowers, scrolls on a ground of blue spirals. George Jennings (1721?-1790), of Newsells Park, near Barkway, Hertfordshire may have owned the bowl. Jennings was the only son of Rear-Admiral Sir John Jennings, which might account for the anchor crest. As Comptroller-General of the Army and a Member of Parliament, Jennings supported John Wilkes (1725-1797) against the attempt of the prime minister, George Grenville, to ban Wilkes' allegedly seditious issue No. 45 of "The North Briton." Both Jennings and Wilkes were also Masons. The outside has four panels: On opposite sides of the bowl, two oval portraits of John Wilkes inscribed "JOHN: WILKES. Esq:", one looking right and the other left, all encircled by flame-like leaves; an English landscape scene in a shaped panel with a woman and man who is pointing to a large manor and tall sponged trees, a scene characteristic of a well-known group of Bristol delft associated with the name of John Bowen of Bristol; and impaled arms (the coat of arms of a husband and wife), inscribed "JENINGS AND WILCOCK", implying that Sarah Jenings' maiden name was Wilcock, surrounded with elaborate floral sprays. The Wilcock arms are: "Argent a lion rampant between three crescent sable a chief vair"; the Jenings arms are: "Argent a chevron between three plummets sable" [black plumb-lines], first granted in 1641. Relatively few delftware examples with coats of arms have survived, and for the most part these bear the arms of the English gentry.
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+57.109 |
