A CHELSEA FABLE SUBJECT OCTAGONAL TEABOWL AND SAUCER, CIRCA 1753-54 painted by Jeffreyes Hamett O'Neale with scenes from Aesop's Fables, the saucer painted with `The Fox and the Goat', the teabowl with `The Crow and the Pot', the saucer also painted with floral sprigs and insects saucer 12.25cm wide, minor wear and glaze nicks to rims (2) Provenance: Sotheby's, London, 13th April 1973, lot 110 The saucer's fable is illustrated by Barlow, Aesop's Fables with His Life, 1666, fable LX, p.121: The Fox & Goate their scorching thirst t'Aswage Lodged in one Buckett in a well ingage, The Fox by prayers does with the Goate prevaile, That he ascending on his back might scale The Margent of the well; so he againe His freedome by this engine did obteyne; The Goate (the Fox infranchis'd) then desir'd His freedome might bee by his ayd accquir'd The Fox the Goate (who by his imposture chydes) In Angry murmurs with contempt derides Saying If's witt and beard had but one size He had declin'd this ruinous surprise Moral: Consult before you undertake, or looke, To be in perillous attempts forsooke A teabowl with the same fable is illustrated by Yvonne Hackenbroch, Chelsea and Other English Porcelain, pl.16, fig.26, and also by Dr Bellamy Gardner 'Animals in Porcelain', E.C.C. Transactions, No.2, 1934, pl.VIII The teabowl's fable is also shown by Barlow, op. cit., fable XXXIV, p.79: A Crow each verdant meadow did survey Her thirsty heate with water to allay, But none could trace, but that whose treasurie The bottom of a vessall was; which shee Attempts in vaine t'attacque when straight ye Gill She with a stock of pebles strove to fill Which bouy'd the water up, by wch she gaind That from wch else her wish had bin restreyn'd Moral: Thus ofttymes wee when force cannot prevaile The Lions skin piece with the Foxes tayle The same fable is to be seen on a Worcester plate illustrated by Marshall, Coloured Worcester Porcelain, pl.13, No.19.