Caughley Mansfield Pattern Tea Caddy

Item number 5 in our first batch of antiques bought is this Caughley tea caddy:

You can see it here

I bought this partly because I’ve also bought a caughley fisherman pattern plate that I think was quite cheap, and when I saw this rather nice tea caddy described as handpainted in the mansfield pattern at £95, I thought this was quite cheap too.

In actual fact I used the “make a better offer” option and ended up paying just £85 in total including postage for what  Ithink is a very nice object.

The previous Caughley plate is a typical transfer printed piece, and plates are very common, but tea caddys are much more desirable, particularly when handpainted.

Now I have to say that both Caughley and Worcester are very similar, and this could be by either if it is an 18th Century piece, but I cannot make out from the photos (see below) if this is really handpainted, it does have a slight look of a transfer.

I’m hoping that this is right, it should be, but there is an outside chance that it could be a much later Coalport copy (Coalport ended up with many of the transfers, etc from Caughley) since Coalport copies do abound, so we’ll see when it gets here.

It was strange that the vendor had a few more much more common items from Caughley at a much higher price – I hope it does turn out to be right, because I think it should be worth £100+ even without the lid and with the small, very tiny chip near the footrim.

As soon as it arrives it will be auctioned, so keep watching to see how it does!