Each of chamfered oval form, resting upon four elaborate feet, with human face handles on either end, surmounted by a complementary dome≠ shaped cover with lotus bud finial.
Height: 10 ½ inches (26.7 cm)
Length: 13 ¼ inches (33.7 cm)
Ex: Private New York Collection (acquired from The Chinese Porcelain Company in 1997)
While seemingly made for the Portuguese market, Claire Le Corbeiller notes (China Trade Porcelain, 1974, No. 32) stylistic similarities from Claude de Pacquier and Christoph Conrad Hunger who moved to the short lived Vezzi factory in Venice. She also notes a similar looking service made slightly later for D. Jose Ribiero da Fonseca Figueiredo e Sousa, Bishop of Oporto in 1740.
Other tureens from this service with variant finials are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (acquired from our gallery). Other forms with this type of decoration are in the Victoria and Albert Museum. A pair of wine coolers are also known (du Boulay, Christie's Pictorial History of Chinese Ceramics, 1984, p. 283) and another Tureen and Cover (Beurdeley, Porcelaine de la Compagnie des Indes, 1962, fig. 59)