Chaffers Liverpool Jumping Boy pattern teabowl, circa 1760

Chaffers Liverpool Jumping Boy pattern teabowl, circa 1760, decorated in blue with a boy leaping into the air with his arms outstretched, an elegant woman in flowing robes holding a flower and seated upon rockwork, a willow tree and further rockwork with sprouting grasses.

Diameter: 7.7 cm. (3 in.), height: 4.5cm. (1 3/4in.)

Condition:

Piece out of the rim neatly put back with associated small chip

An advertisement in Williamson’s Liverpool Advertiser in December 1756 dates Richard Chaffers & Co. as the second oldest producer of porcelain in the Liverpool area, after William Reid. The manufactory, located at Shaw’s Brow, began producing a porcelain with bone-ash body in around 1755. Later, production shifted to a porcelain made with steatite (soapstone) quarried from the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall, where Richard Chaffers had a licence to mine from 1756. This new type of porcelain, which resembled Worcester, was able to withstand boiling water – an obvious advantage in the production of tea and coffee wares. Like other ceramic manufactories in Britain at this time, much Liverpool ware featured chinoiserie designs based, however loosely, on Chinese Kangxi pieces. The ‘jumping boy’ pattern was one such design, based on the ‘Zhegui ying xi’ (折桂婴戏) motif popular during the Kangxi period.

For an illustrated example of a similar teabowl see Maurice Hillis (2011) ‘Liverpool Porcelain 1756-1804’, fig.5.86, p.182.

A Chaffers cup of the same design can be found in the collection of the British Museum (OA.10471).

Dimensions

Price on application

This object is eligible for a Certificate of BADA Provenance

Condition report

Stock number