Cane handle of soft-paste porcelain painted with enamels, probably modelled by Joseph Willems, Chelsea porcelain factory, Chelsea, ca. 1745-1746.

Cane handle of soft-paste porcelain painted with enamels. In the form of a female head with flowers below her hair.

According to Adams (see below), the modelling of this cane handle resembles that of the terracotta models of a man and a woman dancing in the Ashmolean, each incised 'Willems' and dated 1749. 'The stocky peasant type of figure suggested by these dancers was often represented in Willems' work in porcelain, and their broad, slightly smiling faces recur in Chelsea figures of all dates. A porcelain can handle formed as a female head [fig. 7.30] has features very similar to those of the terracotta figures, and as it is made in a Triangle porcelain body, it tends to confirm that Willems was already working at Chelsea from 1748.'

1200-1864