81.
A ‘BLUE AND WHITE’ VASE WITH GILT METAL MOUNT
the vase Qing dynasty, Kangxi period, early 18th century; the mount European, late 18th–early 19th century.
27,3 cm high
Apocryphal Da Ming Jiajing nianzhi six-character mark.
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. n. 3957.
Standing on a circular splayed foot, the body horizontally divided by a waist in two sections both decorated with a series of vertical leaf-shaped panels each with a lady playing an instrument or simply posing, alternating to compositions with vases and flowers, the upper side underlined by a circular ribbed gilt metal mount, the central waist with a geometrical frieze.
This vase was originally in the shape knows as gu. The upper side is now missing and the cut or broken section was hidden by the gilt bronze mount of Neoclassical style.
The Walters Art Museum of Baltimore owns two intact similar vases (45 cm high), in the upper section a series of leaf-shaped panels each with one of the Eight Daoist Immortals (baxian) (inv. 49.1841-2); another similar complete gu with also a six-character Jiajing mark is in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (J. Van Campen, Supplement to Chinese ceramics in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. The Ming and Qing dynasties, in collaboration with C.J.A. Jörg, Amsterdam 1997, p. 14, n. 87); see also the pair in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London which forms a group with two baluster vases and cover with an analogous decoration (C. Clunas (edited by), Chinese Export Art and Design, London 1987, pp. 40-41).
