86.
A LARGE ‘BLUE AND WHITE AND COPPER RED’ DOUBLE GOURD VASE, HULUPING
Qing dynasty, Kangxi period, early 18th century
80 cm high
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. n. 3873.
The lower globular body separated by the pear-shaped upper part by a waist, both the sections decorated in underglaze blue and copper red with scrolls of peonies inside large lobed cartouches, the waist with four lobed medallions with objects and small floral compositions against a cracked-ice ground.
The combination of underglaze cobalt blue and copper red is one the greatest achievement of the Jingdezhen kilns during the Kangxi reign. If it is in fact widely accepted that the firing of the copper red alone creates many difficulties as it needs a precise control of the temperatures in the kiln, it could be imagined the high technical level necessary to fire together two delicate enamels such as cobalt blue and copper red. In the best examples of this rare style of decoration, mainly destined to the internal market, the red is brilliant, while it assumes tones nearer to the brown in those pieces made for export to Europe.
This kind of large vase is well documented in the collection of Augustus the Strong (1670-1733), now in the Porzellansammlung in Dresden (inv. nn. PO 2090-3), recorded in the inventory compiled in 1721: most of those pieces has the original domed covers, which is missing in the example here discussed.
A similar pair of large vases is in the RA collection (M.A. Pinto de Matos, The RA Collection of Chinese Ceramics. A Collector’s Vision, 3 voll., London 2011, III, p. 300); another pair is in the National Museum of Decorative Arts in Madrid.
