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Chinese and Japanese Works of Art in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen

This publication highlights some of the most important examples of eastern arts now in the western world

JINGDEZHEN [JIANGXI PROVINCE, CHINA]

Vase with mounts

second half of 18th century, mount: 1808

Porcelain with crackled light blue glaze and gilt bronze | 49 x 23.5 x 22.5 cm (whole object) | RCIN 187

Pale blue craquele Chinese porcelain bottle-shaped vase with gilt bronze dragons with half-opened wings.

Bottle-shaped with globular body and waisted cylindrical neck with splayed mouth. Covered with a lustrous lavender-blue glaze with an all-over dark crackle. The top of the vase with a broad circular spreading rim with milled edge simulating a tightly woven pattern and with smooth burnished inner part with two raised ridges in between which is a lozenge-hatched ground. Attached to either side of the neck are a pair of gilt-bronze dragons with half-opened wings, coiled tails and necks reaching over the rim toward each other and peering into the neck. The vase’s foot is supported by a cup of eight shell-like lotus leaves rising from a broad waisted stem with two-tiered step, which is attached to a square plinth of green marble .

The mounts were commissioned to Vulliamy & Sons (Benjamin Vulliamy and his son, Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy) in 1808.

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.

  • Creator(s)

    Jingdezhen [Jiangxi Province, China] (place of production)

    Benjamin Vulliamy (1747-1811) (metalworker)

    Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy (1780-1854) (metalworker)

    Chinese (nationality)

    English (nationality)

  • 49 x 23.5 x 22.5 cm (whole object)


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