A rare famille rose coffee pot and cover
Yongzheng, circa 1735
The pear shaped ewer with a phoenix-head spout and S-shaped phoenix-tail handle, surmounted by a domed cover with a lotus bud finial, the body enamelled on one side with a cockerel and a hound and on the other side with an eagle and a cat, all amidst lotus, aster, linghzi fungus, bamboo and other plants, below borders around the neck and shoulders including a band of florets, gilt band, whorls, spearheads and pendent lotus lappets with tassels, the spreading foot with foliage and a cross-hatch design, the cover with four lappets enclosing flowerheads on a brocade design, tassels, spearheads and whorl patterns, attached stand.
25cm (9⅞in) high. (3).
The pear shaped ewer with a phoenix-head spout and S-shaped phoenix-tail handle, surmounted by a domed cover with a lotus bud finial, the body enamelled on one side with a cockerel and a hound and on the other side with an eagle and a cat, all amidst lotus, aster, linghzi fungus, bamboo and other plants, below borders around the neck and shoulders including a band of florets, gilt band, whorls, spearheads and pendent lotus lappets with tassels, the spreading foot with foliage and a cross-hatch design, the cover with four lappets enclosing flowerheads on a brocade design, tassels, spearheads and whorl patterns, attached stand.
25cm (9⅞in) high. (3).
Sold for
£1,500
inc. premium
Footnotes
- Provenance: a Greek private collection formed in the 1950s/60s and thence by descent.
The rare shape of this ewer, most probably used as a coffee pot, is based on the more typical pear shape, but enhanced with the novelty phoenix shaped spout and handle, suggesting it was specially commissioned by a Western buyer and formed part of the private trade.
See D.S.Howard, The Choice of the Private Trader: The Private Market in Chinese Export Porcelain illustrated from the Hodroff Collection, London, 1994, pls.169-170 for a cylindrical coffee pot, with a novelty ostrich-shaped spout and handle; and a pear-shaped coffee pot, with the more typical long curved spout and ear-shaped handle emerging from makara dragons, both dated as Yongzheng, circa 1735.
Category: Asian Art / Chinese Works of Art
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