A VERY RARE FAMILLE ROSE SILVER-SHAPED SOUP-TUREEN AND COVER

QIANLONG

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A VERY RARE FAMILLE ROSE SILVER-SHAPED SOUP-TUREEN AND COVER
qianlong
The slightly bombé body moulded with slender vertical lobes, enamelled with floral sprays and applied with two Meissen-style upright scroll handles curling over the face of a bearded man wearing a black hat, supported on four rococo-scroll legs issuing cabbage leaves extending onto the body, below the waisted neck with a bamboo wreath entwined with flower sprays and a moulded leafy border at the rim, the domed cover similarly modelled and surmounted by a large moulded cabbage with thick upright leaves overlapping around the central heart and surrounded by leeks, beans and mushrooms, piece from cover rim restuck with two associated chips restored
15in. (38cm.) wide

Lot Essay

See M. Beurdeley, op.cit., p.50 for a discussion on the silver original from which this shape is taken. The author quotes the silver specialist Stéphanie Faniel: 'The hybrid style of this piece combines the characteristic elements both of silver and ceramics during the Transition Period (Louis XV - Louis XVI). The finely modelled vegetables on the cover, the base and the heavily gadrooned border, are in the style of Nicolas Roettiers (1752-1777). German influence can be seen in the masks of the arched handles, a motif which is often found on Meissen porcelain. The interlaced foliage of the feet owes more to Louis XV than XVI ....'.
Cf. the very similar tureen and cover, with stand, illustrated by Beurdeley, ibid., colour pl.X, p.53; and another, illustrated by Lloyd Hyde, Silva and Malta, op.cit., pl.II, p.17.
A similar example was sold in these Rooms, 17 November 1980, lot 192; and a tureen and cover, with stand, of this shape and bearing the arms of Anselmo José da Cruz Sobral, illustrated by A.du Boulay, op.cit., p.281, was sold Christie's London, 14 June 1976, lot 139; and a pair, with the arms of Marliave and Fieubert, was sold Sotheby's Monaco, 23 June 1985, lot 627, and again Sotheby's London, 8 November 1994, lot 179.

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