Page 17 - Chinese Export Art Christie's New York, Jan 21, 2016

The fve-piece garniture, most often in this confguration of two beaker and three covered
baluster vases, had become a classic in Chinese export porcelain by the late 17th century.
Referring to the Vung Tao sale held Christie’s Amsterdam, 7-8 April 1992, D.S. Howard
writes that “It is clear from examination of this 1695 cargo that the most important part
was vases and garnitures” (Choice of the Private Trader, p. 236). Although quickly adopted
for fashionable European house decoration and popular throughout the China trade period,
the fve-piece garniture actually derives straight from a very Chinese prototype. Every
prosperous household or palace in China would have had an altar table or cabinet graced
by a fve-piece garniture in porcelain or cloisonné or bronze. These garnitures usually
consisted of a central censer and cover, a pair of pricket candlesticks and a pair of gu-form
vases. Sometimes garnitures of “altar ornaments” were used, showing ribbon-tied precious
symbols supported on stepped standards. All seem to have been in a medium scale of 14
to 18 inches, not the massive size of the present example. A set of this grand scale was
obviously intended for a very important house, where it may have stood on the foor of the
hall or in front of the freplace in summer as easily as on top of a sideboard or monumental
bookcase.

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