98.
A PAIR OF ‘BLUE AND WHITE’ EWERS, ONE WITH GILT METAL MOUNT
the porcelain Qing dynasty, Kangxi period, late 17th century; the mount probably Dutch, late 17th century
22,1 and 25,4 cm high
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. nn. 3438, 3484.
The globular body of both the pieces moulded in a series of ten lotus leaves, surmounted by a long cylindrical neck with a rib toward the splayed mouth, the curved spout starting from the shoulder, the vivid decoration consisting in floral compositions on the body arranged inside each of the moulded panels, the neck with a series of horizontal bands, the elegant gilt bronze mount on one of the piece forming the handle in the shape of a female figure, the domed cover with a small handle shaped as a fantastic animal and the finial of the spout.
The shape of these two ewers is inspired by Near-Eastern metal prototypes.
The nearly identical pair of ewers with a comparable mount now in the National Museum of Denmark are registered in an inventory of the Danish Kunstkammer compiled in 1701 (T. Clemmensen – M.B. Mackeprang, Kina og Danmark 1600-1950. Kinafart og Kinamode, Copenaghen 1980, pp. 74-75, figg. 38a-38b).
For another comparable ewer in the Museums für Kunsthandwerk in Frankfurt am Main, see G. Avitabile – S.G. von der Schulenburg, Chinesisches Porzellan, Frankfurt am Main 1992, p. 80, n. 141; see also the similar pieces published by S.F. Yeo – J. Martin, Chinese Blue & White Ceramics, Singapore 1978, nn. 276-277.
