Description:

This porcellanous tureen, with twisted handles and standing on three feet, was almost certainly made at the Cockpit Hill Pot Works in Derby.  Cockpit Hill was mainly a producer of creamware and stoneware but, as is shown by a 1780 advertisement for the selling up of its stock in trade, it also produced porcelain.  John Heath was a partner in both Cockpit Hill and the main Derby porcelain factory and surviving pieces indicate that there was a connection between the two factories with regard to printed decoration.  It is known that Richard Holdship was decorating Derby porcelain and Cockpit Hill creamwares with overglaze printed decoration, as his anchor rebus is found on both.  In like manner, there are a number of underglaze blue prints, including some of the floral sprays seen on this tureen, that seem to have been used at both factories and which it seems reasonable to attribute to Holdship's printing. 

The porcelain attributed to Cockpit Hill is of rather poor quality and some of it, like this tureen, is virtually opaque.

This tureen was previously in the Ernest Allman, Norman Stretton and Geoffrey Godden collections and is discussed in the latter's English Blue and White Porcelain pp219-222 (2004).