CIRCA 1775, THE PORCELAIN 18TH CENTURY

In the late 19th Century these vases were owned by Baroness Burton, a leading English collector of porcelain and French furniture. She and her husband were the then owners of Chesterfield House, the superb rococo palace built from 1746 by Isaac Ware for the 1st Lord Chesterfield. A series of photographs of its famous interiors taken by Bedford Lemere in the late 19th and early 20th Century show them overflowing with Lady Burton's collection, including these vases, first shown on the chimneypiece of the small dining room, in August 1886, and then later on the large stepped chimneypiece in the library, circa 1908.
Chesterfield House was demolished in 1937 and Lady Burton died childless twenty-five years later. Upon her death, the title of Baron Burton was passed down to Michael Baillie, 3rd Baron Burton.
A closely related pair of vases was sold from the collection of Mrs Corinna Kavanagh, Sotheby's, London, 22 November 1963, lot 11. A further pair featuring very closely-related rare underglaze copper-red and cobalt blue glaze and with the same handle profile, was formerly in the Collection Cottreau, sold Paris, 31 May 1870, lot 159 (and more recently sold Piasa, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 26 June 2001, lot 31).