Chinese export ‘French market’ blue and white sour tureen – £6500 at Lawrences.
Many Chinese export porcelain forms were inspired by European silver or ceramic forms. A particularly rare model is this soup tureen (right) with its frond handles, foliage finial and paw feet, that follows a French rococo design, c.1750, probably made first in faience at the Strasburg or Höchst factories. They are thought to have been made for the French market in the 1750s.
The Minneapolis Institute of Art has a tureen of the same form but quite different famille rose decoration as part of the Leo and Doris Hodroff collection.