Skip to main content

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

A pair of Imperial gilt-bronze and cloisonné enamel lobed jardinières Qianlong image 1
A pair of Imperial gilt-bronze and cloisonné enamel lobed jardinières Qianlong image 2
Lot 250

A pair of Imperial gilt-bronze and cloisonné enamel lobed jardinières
Qianlong

8 November 2012, 10:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £37,250 inc. premium

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

A pair of Imperial gilt-bronze and cloisonné enamel lobed jardinières

Qianlong
Each lobe on the crabapple shaped jardinières set with a decorative panel of cloisonné enamel with a fully-blossoming double lotus in bright pink, red, yellow, black and white amid leafy scrolls in shades of blue and green and all on a turquoise ground, the body incised around the inset panels with further lotus scrolls and the rim similarly decorated, all raised on four taotie-mask feet.
Each 28cm (11in) long (2).

Footnotes

清乾隆 掐絲琺瑯開光纏枝蓮紋海棠式花盆一對

The Imperial quality of these jardinières is clearly established by the provenance of a very similar pair of lobed gilt-bronze and cloisonné enamel jardinières, but decorated with butterflies, removed from the Yuanming Yuan in 1860 by the French forces and part of the first shipment presented to Emperor Napoléon III and Empress Eugénie, who exhibited these and other objects taken during the sacking of the Yuanming Yuan, first in the Tuileries in February to April 1861 and from 1863 until present, in the Musée Chinois de l'Impératrice Eugénie, Château de Fontainbleau (museum ref. no. F 1503 C).

Compare also a similar single jardinière, but containing a simulated tree with jade and hardstone flowers and leaves, previously with Spink & Son Ltd., London, illustrated in The Chinese Collector Throughout the Centuries: From Han to the 20th Century, Fribourg, 1966, p.167, fig.90; see another related cloisonné enamel flowerpot in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, dated to the mid-Qing Dynasty, illustrated in Compendium of Collections in the Palace Museum: Enamel 4, Beijing and Hefei, 2011, pl.18.

We are very grateful to Mr Vincent Droguet, Conservateur en Chef, Musée Chinois de l'impératrice Eugénie, Château de Fontainbleau, for the use of the images and for the information regarding the cloisonné enamel jardinières.

Additional information

Bid now on these items

A rare Chinese group of the Tyrolean Dancers, Qianlong period, circa 1752