Vase with mounts vase: 1730-50, mounts: 1750-75
Porcelain with light blue glaze, painted in blue, copper-red and white slip with gilt bronze | 57.5 x 17.5 cm (whole object) | RCIN 86
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A Chinese porcelain vase with French gilt-bronze mounts. With slender ovoid body and waisted neck. Painted on one side are three white rams among rocks, with a pine tree and bamboo, and on the reverse, five bats, the whole symbolising spring, good fortune and longevity. The circular top rim is encased in an outscrolled fluted and acanthus-leaf gilt-bronze band, above a leafy branch-entwined separate moulding, joined to which are a pair of squared side handles festooned with acanthus, and with slightly recessed reeded inner panels terminating in masks emerging from acanthus. The base is set in a cup with flutes divided by acanthus husks, on a socle with a guilloche collar and a spreading acanthus pedestal foot on a circular laurel wreath on a square base. The mouth mount has a retaining moulding which suggests that the vase was once fitted with a cover, now missing.
A group of rare pieces are these pale blue glazes, among which are a number painted with designs in blue and red, which in France were often dressed in gilt-bronze mounts of the highest quality.
Text adapted from Chinese and Japanese Works of Art in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen: Volume II.Provenance
Almost certainly George IV. Formerly in the Banqueting Room Gallery at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, and described as ‘A Jar of Jasper blue China, with blue & brown Trees and white Goats, mounted in an ormolu leaf rim, bottom & stem, and laurel wreath on a square plinth - square handles, with scrolls and masks, twenty three inches [58.4 cm]’ (1829B, p. 8); sent to Buckingham Palace in March 1847 (1829A, p. 25), where it was noted in 1917 in the Principal Corridor (1829B, p. 8).
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Creator(s)
(nationality)(metalworker)Acquirer(s)
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Medium and techniques
Porcelain with light blue glaze, painted in blue, copper-red and white slip with gilt bronze
Measurements
57.5 x 17.5 cm (whole object)
Category
Object type(s)