Page 45 - Mounted Oriental Porcelain Getty Museum

FIG. 3B. The underside of the lid. College, Oxford, which was mounted in silver-gilt
COMMENTARY
Each jar has been made up from a complete lidded
vessel. The lid has been formed by attaching the shoul-
der to the small original lid by means of a mount. The
enamel decoration has peeled away in some small areas
and has been retouched. This was probably done in
Paris at the time the jars were being fitted into the
mounts. The shape of the jars is based on traditional
storage vessels that would have held tea, candy, rice
crackers, or medicines. These jars were probably made
for export as they are somewhat overdecorated to suit
European taste. Traditionally such jars would have been
painted with two, four, six, eight, or twelve panels, but
these have sixteen panels each.
A similarly decorated complete jar with a domed
lid—but unmounted—was sold in London in 1980a; a
pair of similarly decorated rouleau vases is in the Devon-
shire Collection at Chatsworth.2 Another pair of jars of
similar shape and decoration, but converted into table
lamps, was sold in New York in 1930.3 A pair of Chinese
jars in the Residenzmuseum, Munich,4 has very similar
mounts. Similar strapwork mounts with handles are
found on a pair of cylindrical Kangxi vases sold in Paris
in 1979.5 Other similarly mounted jars have passed
through the Paris auction rooms in the past century6
and a pair of lidded bowls with mounts of this design is
in the Musee Jacquemart-Andre, Paris.7
The practice of joining mounts with pinned hinges
is traditional and dates back to the medieval period. It is
to be found, for example, on the Warham Cup at New
32 PAIR OF LIDDED JARS
between 1506 and 1516 (see Introduction, fig. 6).
PUBLICATIONS
Wilson 1977, p. 12, no. 10; Lunsingh Scheurleer
1980,pp. 60, 252-53, figs. i58a-b; Watson 1980,p. 38,
no. 14; Bremer-David et al. 1993, p. 149, no. 247.
EXHIBITIONS
Chinese Porcelains in European Mounts, The China
Institute in America, New York, 1980, no. 14.
PROVENANCE
Collection of Louis Guiraud, Paris; sold at the sale
of Madame Louis Guiraud, Palais Galliera, Paris, De-
cember 10, 1971, no. i; acquired by the J. Paul Getty
Museum from Alexander and Berendt, London, in 1972.
NOTES
1. Christie's, London, April 28, 1980, lot 83.
2. Treasures from Chatsworth: The Devonshire Inheritance
(Washington, D.C., 1979), p. 231, pi. 194.
3. American Art Association, Anderson Galleries, New
York, February 2,8 and March i, 1930, lot 75, property
of Count Piero Venezze.
4. Res. Mu. KVb 286/87. See Lunsingh Scheurleer 1980,
p. 253, fig. 159.
5. Palais d'Orsay, Paris, March 28, 1979, no. 19.
6. See, for example, a lidded blue-and-white Kangxi vase,
sold from the collection of Jacques Doucet, Galerie
Georges Petit, Paris, June 7-8, 1912, no. 209; a pair of
lidded famille verte vases, sold from the collection of
Madame Louis Burat, Galerie Jean Charpentier, Paris,
June 18, 1937, no. 45; a single lidded famille verte vase,
sold at Drouot-Montaigne, Paris, November 29, 1992,
no. 16; a pair of famille verte lidded vases, sold at Ader
Picard Tajan, Paris, March 15, 1993, no. 439; and a
single lidded famille verte vase, sold at Christie's,
Monaco, December 5, 1993, no. 155.
7. Ace. no. D.68.