Description: English creamware, press-molded melon-shaped covered sugar bowl (commonly called a tureen) on an attached leaf-shaped stand with a molded foliate design around the handle ends of both the domed cover and bowl. Melon-shaped sugar bowls as parts of dessert services were popular during the second half of the 18th century. These ceramics in the shape of fruits and vegetables are typically rococo in style, and the fashion for them declined rapidly with the rise of the neoclassical style. The cover has a curled, extended tendril finial over five wide lobes running lengthwise along the cover; with panels of openwork designs of hearts, diamonds, ovals and circles along each lobe and a pierced heart at the indentation of each lobe at the top end; and a cut-out for a ladle at the handle end. The press-molded leaf stand has relief veining and raised floral work next to the branch handle that is also attached to the lobed tureen body. According to ceramics dealer John Howard, each tureen was decorated in a slightly different manner with trailing vines, grapes, leaves, reticulation, etc.. as a device to signify different sauces. See the Whitehead pattern book, plate 45, no. 76.
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