The Fancy Fox

Description

A stunning porcelain shaped dessert plate by Copeland with a base ground of the richest underglaze blue with a spectacular mirror shine glaze. Three large shaped reserves, ornately framed with gilt scrolled acanthus leaves, are filled with beautifully painted arrangements of garden flowers painted in bright enamels. The central reserve is painted with a striking family crest, of a phoenix in flames rising out of the coronet of a Marquess, with a coronet on its own head. The technical heraldic description would be: out of a ducal coronet or (gold), a crowned phoenix in flames proper (natural colours). Below the crest is the motto "Ad Finem Fidelis" in a puce banner. A private commission pattern number 8980 is painted to the reverse along with the company backstamp of c.1860. There is a second plate available.

I cannot find the specific family who commissioned this service, a combination of this crest and motto not having been found, and indeed this specific crest not having been found documented either whilst several families have a crest featuring a similarly described phoenix and ducal coronet, I have found none where the phoenix is crowned, and, whilst a ducal crest coronet is not usually significant of a specific status, this coronet is clearly that of a Marquess which seems unlikely not to be of significance. The two pearls of the main coronet and a pearl to the centre of that crowning the phoenix are raised enamel "jewels" also. It is therefore possibly linked to the Seymour family of Hertford, Seymour being a family named repeatedly linked to the main features of a crest with a phoenix in flames rising out of a ducal coronet, and several members of which were titled Marquess: Richard Seymour-Conway, Francis Hugh George Seymour and Hugh Grey de Seymour being the 4th, 5th and 6th Marquesses of Hertford respectively, present in the mid-19th century. The motto "Ad Finem Fidelis", translating to "Faithful To The End", is not noted as linked to the family, but mottos are famously quite transient and can be changed, removed and added at any time.

Reference materials including, but not limited to, Fairbairn's Book Of Crests Of The Families Of Great Britain & Ireland, and The Book Of Family Crests published by Reeves & Turner, British Armorial Bindings online resource, county council records, etc.

The plate measures 23cm (9 1/16") wide.

Condition is excellent with no damage, repair or restoration. Very minor handling wear, mainly just to the gilding to the edges of the reserves in the centre of the plate and the fine gilt lettering of the motto is slightly faded.
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