Pair of vases

A pair of Chinese porcelain vases with green glaze, painted in famille rose enamels and gilt. Each slender ovoid, the shoulder tapering to a broad-waisted neck and spreading lip. On front and back are gilt-framed, upright, rectangular panels, set in a ground of light apple-green enamel, pencilled in black with a pattern of crackle. Within them, in crimson-pink, the gilt-framed panels show finely painted lakeside scenes, representing on one side, figures on a bridge by a house, and on the reverse, a building on stilts, a man in a boat and a pavilion on a distant promontory. On 58816.2 the same scenes are painted in reverse. On the base, in iron red, reserved in the turquoise ground, is the six-character reign-mark written in seal script: Da Qing Qianlong nian zhi (‘Made in the reign of the Qianlong emperor of the Great Qing’).

The introduction of the famille rose enamelling style was encouraged by the Kangxi emperor’s liking for painted enamels on copper. A workshop set up within the Forbidden City made use of an imported crimson-pink enamel derived from gold, and an opaque white, which together facilitated an entire range of new soft and shaded tints. Manchu imperial taste is reflected in the creation for the court of porcelain bowls with flowers depicted on brilliantly coloured grounds, which continued to be made in successive reigns. The use of coloured grounds combined with finely painted designs remained a feature of court wares of the Qianlong and later periods. Meanwhile, quantities of famille rose decorated wares were made for export to the West, including vases, figure models and table wares. Some were shaped or decorated to order with armorial and other designs.

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