Rare and massive punchbowl, c.1775 (ceramic) (see also 3084896)

Enamelled with painterly skill around the exterior with two pointedly contrasting scenes, one after William Hogarth's painting Midnight Modern Conversation, showing a group of English gentlemen gathered around a table in St. John's Coffeehouse after a long night of dissipation, some still alert and offering toasts ladled from a large blue and white punchbowl, others dozing or in drunken stupors, one at the right with a lit candle setting his sleeve afire, one with a flask slipping from his hand, spilling its contents, on the floor in the foreground a leaking blue and white chamberpot and the tallcase clock at the other side reading 4 o'clock, while on the other side of the bowl is the scene of an elegant Chinese gentlemen's supper, the dishes arranged carefully on the table before them and a maidservant pouring tea, four of the diners conversing while the fifth dozes in his chair, perhaps from the effects of the pipe falling from his hand, to one side a girlservant brings a tray of fruit and behind her the gentlemens' hats and cloaks are carefully placed on a table, in the room beyond an altar table holds an arrangement of scholar's articles with a painting hung behind and on the other side a garden courtyard is visible, in between these scenes gilt scrollwork suspends floral festoons and encloses loose bouquets with butterflies hovering above, a similar flower cluster in the center of the bowl beneath a border of further floral festoons