279.
A ‘FAMILLE ROSE’ BALUSTER VASE AND COVER
Qing dynasty, early Qianlong period
61 cm high
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. n. 3988.
Large vases like this were produced in China explicitly for Europe where they were arranged in the ample rooms of princely residences with only decorative purposes. The brilliant decoration and the exotic motif on this vase, with the elegant long-tail pheasants placed on a rock amidst a myriad of flowers, perfectly imbued the taste for Chinoiserie which spread in all the European countries with greater intensity in the second quarter of the eighteenth century.
Pheasant (zhi) is a widespread symbol of beauty and good fortune often associated with women. They were also used on badge to designate the rank of civil official.
The spherical finial of the cover is a substitution of the lost original. The cover itself didn’t belong originally to this vase.
