Page 61 - Mounted Oriental Porcelain Getty Museum

8. PAIR OF LIDDED VASES

THE PORCELAIN: Chinese (Kangxi), from Dehua, 1662-1722; circa 1700
THE SILVER MOUNTS: French (Paris), 1722-27

HEIGHT: 75/s in. (19.4 cm); WIDTH: 33/8 in. (8.6 cm); DEPTH: 3 in. (7.7 cm)

9I.DI.103.1-.2,

DESCRIPTION pan, where they were bought by the Dutch.1 The purity
This pair of small vases is made of fine white clay of these white wares appealed to collectors, and the
and covered with a clear glaze. A molded lion's head has porcelain manufacturers at Meissen, Saint-Cloud, and
been applied to either side of each vase just below the Chantilly sought to reproduce them. The finest Dehua
shoulder, and a small hole has been drilled through the vessels were made during the Kangxi dynasty. Since the
wall beneath. mid-nineteenth century, porcelain of this type has been
Each vase is mounted with silver at the foot and lip, known as blanc-de-chine.
and the upper part has been pierced with holes set with
star-shaped silver mounts (fig. 8A). A finial in the form of The form of these vases is familiar among Dehua
a bud set in a six-leaf cup surmounts each silver lid. The wares. The presence of two larger vases of similar form,
domed lids are pierced with a repeating motif of scroll- inscribed with characters in grass script and datable to
ing leaves and have gadrooned rims (fig. SB). The lip of 1683 and 1702, makes it possible to date the Getty Mu-
the vase is encircled by a silver band. The foot is set in a seum's pair of vases to between these years.2 Vases of this
mount decorated with bead-and-chain on the stippled type were originally meant to hold flowers during a reli-
ground below a gadrooned band. gious ceremony. The Museum's pair was transformed
to contain potpourri, the perfume of which escaped
MARKS through the holes in the vase and the lid. Given the jewel-
Each lid and base mount is stamped with a dove like quality of the mounts, these potpourris must have
(fig. 8c), the Paris discharge mark for small silver works been made for use in a small cabinet or bed chamber,
used between May 6, 1722, and September 2, 1727, perhaps for the table carrying the silver boxes used for
under the fermier Charles Cordier; a boar's head facing the toilette.
right (fig. SD), the Paris discharge mark for small and
old silver works used between December 23, 1768, and PUBLICATIONS
September i, 1775, under the fermier Julien Alaterre; "Acquisitions/i991," GettyMus] zo (1992), p. 174
and the profile head of Minerva (fig. SE), the mark for no. 75; Bremer-David et al. 1993, p. 151, no. 252.
.800 silver works sold in France after May 10, 1838.
PROVENANCE
COMMENTARY Gift of Mme. Simone Steinitz, 1991.
The porcelain of Dehua in the southern Chinese
province of Fukien reached Europe in large quantities
during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Af-
ter the Ming dynasty (1388-1644), most Dehua wares
were exported from the Chinese port of Xiamen to Ja-

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