Featured Identifying Blue & White Chinoiserie Tureens

Hello Antiquers,

I recently acquired these blue and white pearlware tureens but have been unable to find another example of the model. Has anyone seen them before / have an idea of the maker and perhaps value? Any insight would be greatly appreciated

 

Size please.
They look like butter dishes to me, shaped after wooden tubs.

 

Thank you, they're approximately 9 cm high with base diameter of 9.75 cm, whilst max diameter is 15 cm. The holes on the lid are intriguing, do butter dishes ever come with that?

 

AJ suggestion makes sense. The browning on the lower half of the one could be from the butter seeping into glaze crazing.

 

size would help. I am assuming 4" based on tile in background.

 

I didn't realize they went all the way through.

 

That's no problem, I should have uploaded a photo showing it - there are 5 on each lid. Plus the one on each animal head, which leads me to think they were perhaps once strung and may have been hung?

 

They certainly do appear to be butter dishes / tubs from the examples I've now been able to find.. although none I've seen have the holes on the lid. There's examples with similar lug handles, albeit with no animal. I'm assuming these are early 19th century, circa 1820s? but still no idea who produced and how rare they may actually be

 

They may be earlier, as in late eighteenth. A Staffordshire maker.

 

Looks like pearlware. The pattern looks a bit post 1820 to me

 

Those perforated lids are a conundrum... usually that means it's for steam to escape while/after cooking, or a way for air to enter and create a dryer atmosphere within to prevent mold on a moist item. (Of course there's also potpourri uses but I don't think that's the case here.)
The old covered butter bowls often had a perforated insert for the butter to sit on but I, too, have not seen one with a perforated lid.
I wonder if they each once had curved basket handles?