Page 83 - Marchant 2013 Exhibition

三 38. A pair of Chinese export porcelain recumbent King Charles spaniels, each modelled with upright turned head, short muzzle and

十 long ears, their bushy tails curling at the front, the long coat finely enamelled in sepia brown naturalistically applied to emulate hair
八 work, leaving areas of white glaze on the body, neck, ears and paws, the eyes and paws heightened in black enamel and the tongues

外 iron red.
銷 8 ⅞ inches, 22.6 cm long, 6 ½ inches, 16.5 cm high.
彩 Qianlong, circa 1760.

繪
臥 • Formerly in the collection of the Kjellberg Family and handed down for over six generations from their home near Gothenburg
犬 on the West coast of Sweden.

一 • An identical spaniel together with its matched iron-red partner sold by Philip Suval, New York, 1946, is illustrated by William

對 R. Sargent in The Copeland Collection, Chinese and Japanese Ceramic Figures, The Peabody Museum of Salem, no. 90, p. 187,

where the author notes that this large recumbent model is rarer than the popular seated version. Similar examples, known as the
清 Blenheim variety of spaniel, were presented to the Duke of Marlborough. Identical models were discovered in the shipwreck of
乾
隆 the Griffin, a British East India Company ship which sank in 1761.
• A related spaniel of similar size is illustrated by David Howard and John Ayers in China for the West, volume two, no. 622,

p. 598, where the authors states, “Perhaps the most attractive of all the Chinese models of dogs, this small, long-haired and long-

eared breed is widely supposed to have been popularized in England during the reign of Charles II (1660-1685). Like the Pug

dog, the King Charles spaniel was a result of interbreeding with a type brought from China.”

• A similar smaller pair was included by Marchant in their Recent Acquisitions catalogue 2006, no. 55, pp. 102/3.

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