Bottle mounted in gilt bronze

A Chinese globular porcelain bottle with tubular neck cut off above the shoulder, the body moulded with spiral reeding and covered with café-au-lait glaze (coffee-coloured glaze). Above a line of dark brown glaze the neck is painted in blue with leafy flower sprays. The neck has been replaced with a two-tiered collar in French gilt bronze with four applied cast bosses, with Bacchic satyr heads alternating with acanthus. Attached to the beaded everted lip is a pair of flat acanthus-scroll handles rising from bearded Bacchic satyr masks fixed to the shoulder. The foot is set in a spreading gilt-bronze base cast with lotus leaves, on a circular foot with a granulated band between two burnished bands.

Although the neck has been cut down, the body is not pierced at the sides where the masks rest.

Text adapted from Chinese and Japanese Works of Art in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen: Volume I.