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A small group of Qianlong-marked porcelain candlesticks of very similar form are also inscribed with
imperial poems, including a blue and white example in the National Palace Museum, illustrated in
Special Exhibition of K’ang-hsi, Yung-cheng and Ch’ien-lung Porcelain Ware from the Ch’ing Dynasty,
Taipei, 1986, p. 168, no. 141, and a pair of yangcai examples, illustrated in Stunning Decorative Porcelains
from the Ch’ien-lung Reign, Taipei, 2008, pp. 96-97, no. 24. According to the palace records, on the ninth
day of the second month of Qianlong ninth year, “a blue and white candlestick and an imperial poem
were presented”, followed by an imperial decree: “Send this candlestick to Tang Ying and ask him to
make candlesticks of this form but with imperial poems inside drip-pans; let him work on blue and white
version and send them over frst and then make some yanghua examples” (see Zijincheng de jiyi: tushuo
qinggong ciqi dangan [Memories of the Forbidden City: Illustrated Catalogue of the Qing Palace Records
of Porcelains], Beijing, 2016, p. 193, no. 3). It is likely that the Qianlong Emperor also ordered the imperial
workshops to add imperial poems to cloisonné candlesticks of the present type.
The current pair of candlesticks appears to be unique, with no other cloisonné enamel candlestick with
an imperial poem appearing to have been published. A pair of Yongzheng cloisonné enamel candlesticks
of similar form but lacking poetic inscriptions and of smaller size (14 cm. high), was sold at Christie’s
Hong Kong, 31 May 2010, lot 1879. Compare, also, a pair of cloisonné enamel candlesticks of closely
related form but also of smaller size (13.3 cm. high), in the Pierre Uldry Collection, illustrated by Brinker
and Lutz, in Chinese Cloisonné: The Pierre Uldry Collection, New York, 1989, no. 280.

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