Page 42 - Mounted Oriental Porcelain, The Getty Museum

MARKS None. pied a jour porte par trois petits Lions; le tout de
cuivre dore, haute de quartorze pouces six lignes. 9
COMMENTARY The description of this mounted green ewer is
Before acquisition by the Getty Museum, the ewer strikingly similar to the Museum's ewer, with the excep-
had been broken and poorly mended. It has now been tion of the foot mount. There is no indication that the
restored. Apart from the replaced handle, the ewer is in latter was similarly mounted at its base, but the inclu-
its original form. sion of such an object in the Dauphin's collection shows
The tall cylindrical ewer with a wall lip, known in that such pieces were mounted at this early date.
China as Dou mu hu, derives from a metal Tibetan pro- Ewers of this form, but with purple glaze, are
totype, bay-lep. Secularly used for beer, these jugs would found, with neoclassical gilt-bronze mounts, in the sale
have been used for milk tea in the Lamaist monasteries of Gaignat in 1768, where they were acquired by the
that flourished throughout China during the reign of the due d'Aumont, and later passed into the ownership of
Kangxi emperor. Both simple metal bound wooden ves- Louis xvi. 10 Marie-Antoinette also possessed a pair of
sels and more elaborate damascened iron 1 or repousse purple ewers, mounted by Pierre Gouthiere, for her cab-
2
copper and brass examples exist. inet interieur at Versailles (see catalogue no. zz). 11
These vessels, used in China and Tibet, were made
for domestic use and not for export. However, this ex- PUBLICATIONS
ample must have arrived in Paris within a few years of John Getz, Catalogue of Chinese Art Objects . . .
its manufacture. The French mounts date from the late Collected by Edward R. Bacon (New York, 1919), p. 31,
seventeenth century, and the ewer is one of the earliest pi. iz, no. 65, pi. xii ; Gillian Wilson, "Acquisitions
12
pieces of mounted oriental porcelain of the grand siecle. 1981," GettyMus] 10 (1982), pp. 85-86, no. 6; Bremer-
A ewer of similar form and decoration appeared on David et al. 1993, p. 148, no. 246.
the Paris market in 1996. The enameling of the porcelain
was less elaborate: rockwork replaced scattered flowers; PROVENANCE
chimerae and dragons were absent; and the scattered Edward R. Bacon, New York, circa 1919; Gaston
objects meant to represent the eight Buddhist "precious Bensimon, Paris; acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum
things" were incorrectly drawn. It is possible that the after the sale of the collection of the late Gaston Bensi-
porcelain and, consequently, the gilt-bronze mounts were mon, Hotel Drouot, Paris, November 18 and 19, 1981,
of later date. The gilt-bronze lion's mask bears features no. 103.
dissimilar to those in the Museum's example (fig. ZB).
Chinese cloisonne examples of this form exist in NOTES
the Imperial Palace Museum, Beijing, 3 and in the Na- 1. Pratapaditya Pal, The Art of Tibet (New York, 1969), pi.
4
tional Palace Museum, Taipei. The form was rarely pro- 115, from the Bell collection in the Liverpool City
duced in the Qing period, but the following examples Museum.
the Tibetan Collection and
Catalogue of
Other Lamaist
may be cited: a ewer enameled on the biscuit with "egg- 2. Articles in the Newark Museum, 5 vols. (Newark,
and-spinach"-splashed glazes in the Imperial Palace 1950-71), vol. 5, pi. 6.
5
Museum, Beijing ; a ewer enameled with famille verte in 3. Selected Handicrafts from the Collections of the Palace
1974), pi.
76.
6
the Musee Guimet, Paris ; and another smaller ewer, 4. Museum (Beijing, Chinese Enamel Ware in the National
Masterpieces
of
similarly decorated, that was sold at auction in Paris in Palace Museum, Taipei (Taiwan, 1971), pi. 17.
7
1934 and in New York in 1982. 8 5. Li Jixian, "Qing Kangxichao ciqi chutan" (A preliminary
The Grand Dauphin Louis (1661-1711) had a sub- study of the porcelain made during the reign of the
stantial collection of Chinese porcelain, some of which Kangxi emperor of the Qing dynasty), Gugong
boivuyuan yuankan
(Palace museum journal)., no. 4
was given to him in 1686 by the "ambassadors" from (i979) ? PP- 63-71-
Siam (see Introduction, page 9). The inventory taken of 6. Musee Guimet, Oriental Ceramics: The World's Great
his possessions in 1689 lists 304 pieces in his cabinet at Collections (Taris 1981), vol. 7, no. 132.
1934, no.
Versailles. Of these, thirty-eight were mounted in silver- 7. Galerie Jean Charpentier, Paris, June 7-8, 150. 176.
1982, lot
8.
Christie's, New York, June 23,
gilt and fifteen with gilt bronze. Number no is de- 9. Beurdeley and Raindre 1987, p. 266.
scribed thus: 10. Their present location is not known.
11. Christie's, London, June 9, 1994, lot 35.
Une urne en forme de Buire de Porcelaine verdastre 12. The ewer is illustrated with a nineteenth-century gilt-
avec son gouleau ferme par un bouton tenant a deux bronze foot mount, which was probably removed by its
chaisnes, garni d'une anse & d'un couvercle, sur son subsequent owner Gaston Bensimon.
EWER 29