Lot Essay
With their palm and peony decoration, these vases relate in form and decoration to Lung-ch'uan green celadon-ware, such as the vase, bearing the date 1432, in the Percival David Foundation (G.St.G.M. Gompertz, Chinese Celadon Wares, London, 1958, fig 88). Their mounts, with torus-moulded plinth and lip embellished with a trellised ribbon, are closely related to the documented oeuvre of Messrs. Benjamin Vulliamy and Son of Pall Mall, London. Extensively patronised by George, Prince Regent, later George IV, they were responsible for supplying much of the gilt-bronze mounted objets at Carlton House, often with the assistance of such French bronziers as Delafontaine. Similar engine-turned ornament features on a pair of Ch'ien Lung vases, with related decoration, which is likely to have formed part of the collection acquired in Paris in 1802 by Edward 'Beau', Viscount Lascelles (d.1814) (sold by the Rt. Hon. The Earl of Harewood in these Rooms 1 July 1965, lot 41). These latter vases formed part of a large collection of such ormolu-mounted celadon-ware, which was displayed at the Lascelles family's London house in Hanover Square before being transferred to Harewood House, Yorkshire.