Page 78 - MARCHANT-Kangxi-Famille-Verte-FINAL

二 十 七
27. Chinese porcelain famille verte bottle vase with tall slender gently tapered
cylindrical neck, painted on the body with fifteen mallow flower heads in
yellow, blue, green, iron-red and aubergine enamels heightened in gilt,
紋 長 花 頸 瓶 彩 枝 纏 團 五 on a scrolling leafy foliate ground with several of the leaves with yellow
tips, beneath a wide aubergine ground band at the shoulder painted with
further mallow flower heads between pomegranates all amongst stylised
branches, the neck with iron-red and gilt mallow on scrolling branches,
all beneath a hexagonal diaper band at the rim.
The base with an underglaze blue ‘G’ mark on a white ground.
9 ¼ inches, 23.5 cm high.
Kangxi, circa 1710.

• Formerly in the Heseltine Collection.
清 康 熙 • Sold by H. R. Hancock, 37 Bury Street, St James’s, SW1.
• Formerly in the collection of Thomas Clarke of Farran, Ireland,
thence by direct decent.
The Clarke family were tobacconists, first in Ireland and later in

款 G 字 Liverpool. The Clarke business became part of the Imperial Tobacco
Company. Thomas Clarke moved to the Channel Islands in the early
1930’s and then to Devon to escape German Invasion. Before the
war he had built up an extensive collection of famille verte, which
he had to abandon when he left. He decided to try and replicate his
collection after the war for his new home in Devon. He later moved
族 藏 舊 to Ireland and after his wife died most of the collection was dispersed.
Heseltine 家
This vase being one of only twelve pieces left in the collection
after Thomas’s death, the pieces were divided between his nephew
and nieces.
• A pair of similar bottle vases from the bequest of Mr. and Mrs. J. C.
J. Drucker-Fraser, 1944, are illustrated by Christiaan J.A. Jörg in
Chinese Ceramics in the Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam,
no. 299, p. 260; another, from a private French collection is
illustrated in a group photograph of famille verte by Michel Beurdeley
and Guy Raindre in Qing Porcelain, Famille Verte, Famille Rose,
no. 47, pp. 42-43.
• An example with two tone green leaves without the yellow tips from
the C. A. and J. A. Collections was included by Marchant in their
catalogue of Recent Acquisitions, 2006, no. 27, pp. 50-51; two others
of each type mentioned, purchased from Duveen, New York, by
Mr. and Mrs. Charles P. Taft, 21st October 1902, now in the Taft
Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio is illustrated by Anthony du Boulay in
The Taft Museum, Cincinnati, Its History and Collections, Vol. II,
no. 1931.83, p. 651, where the author notes that the shape of these
vases are sometimes called ‘point bottles’ and are derived from
early near eastern metal and glass rose-water sprinklers, the mark
probably refers to one of the Dutch East India Company’s that may
have ordered these vases, although the script ‘G’ has yet to be firmly
documented or traced to a specific trading company. Some scholars
believe the mark to be an incorrectly written Arabic character.
• A blue and white example previously in the collection of the St. Louis
Art Museum was included by Marchant in their catalogue of Recent
78 Acquisitions, 2007, no. 56, pp. 104-105. 79

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