Page 46 - Mounted Oriental Porcelain Getty Museum

4. LIDDED BOWL

THE PORCELAIN: Japanese (Imari), early eighteenth century
THE SILVER MOUNTS: French (Paris), circa i/zo

HEIGHT: ii in. (27.9 cm); WIDTH: i ft., i3/8 in. (34 cm); DIAMETER: io7/s in. (27.5 cm)
79.01.123

DESCRIPTION FIG. 4A. The lid disassembled.
The deep circular bowl is mounted with silver
around the foot, the lip of the bowl, and the lid. There A gadrooned molding encircles the domed lid midway,
is a silver handle at each side and a silver finial sur- separating it from the inverted dish. The finial is in the
mounts the lid. form of a foliate cup heaped with berries; it is attached
The exterior of the bowl is decorated with irregu- to a pin that passes through both components of the lid,
larly shaped overlapping panels of flowering chrysan- securing them together with a nut.
themum, prunus, and tree peonies in deep underglaze
blue and overglaze iron red and gilt. The interior is sim- MARKS None.
ilarly decorated with three sprays of flowers: chrysanthe-
mum, peony, and prunus. They frame a central panel of COMMENTARY
a classical mountainous river landscape within a double The elements of this piece—the bowl, plate, and
circle of blue. small lid—were all made as export ware. The so-called
The lid is in two stages (fig. 4A), the lower consisting "Imari" decoration was influenced by Chinese ceramics,
of an inverted shallow dish of Imari porcelain, decorated where underglaze blue and overglaze red and gold ap-
on its exterior with a loose chrysanthemum scroll with peared at a considerably earlier date than they did in the
green and yellow enamels over underglaze blue, the base Japanese kilns.
with prunus sprays surrounding a budding branch. The The silver mounts are unmarked. An Imari bowl in
interior (fig.46) is richly decorated with a central formal the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, bears silver
chrysanthemum head—from which radiate panels of mounts of the same design.1 The Munich mounts are
flowering branches and iron-red and gilt chrysanthemum marked with a fleur-de-lys, the Paris mark for the years
heads scattered over gilt cell-patterned blue grounds—
and with pale turquoise and green enamels. The upper
stage of the lid is a domed lid taken from another vase,
with its lip cut down. It is decorated with flowers and
foliage of similar color; four of the flowers are molded
in low relief and gilt, two with brocaded petals.
The lip of the bowl is encircled by a silver gadrooned
molding, flanked at each side by a handle linked to the

foot by a pierced mount of scrolled, foliate, and interlac-
ing forms, attached above and below by a pinned hinge
(fig. 4C).The rim of the foot takes the form of a simple
gadrooned molding. The lower edge of the lid is sur-
rounded by a deep band of silver chased with strapwork
cartouches that enclose fleurons against a matted ground.

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