CIRCA 1715-1720, THE SILVER GERMANY, LATE 19TH 20TH CENTURY, ALSO STRUCK 800

Details

A rare Chinese blue and white armorial silver-mounted ewer
Circa 1715-1720, the silver Germany, late 19th 20th Century, also struck 800
The baluster body painted to each side with a coat-of-arms, surmounted by an eagle with outspread wings and between pendant flower scrolls, below a broad band of meandering feathery scrollwork, all raised on a tall slightly splayed foot with two horizontal ribs, the neck, spout and handle mounted in silver, top and handle reduced
30 cm. high

Special notice

Christie's charge a premium to the buyer on the final bid price of each lot sold at the following rates: 23.8% of the final bid price of each lot sold up to and including €150,000 and 14.28% of any amount in excess of €150,000. Buyers' premium is calculated on the basis of each lot individually.

Lot Essay

The arms are those of Dom Pedro de Lancastre Silveira Valente, 5th Count of Vila Nova de Portimao (1697-1752). For a similar example see Nuno de Castro, Chinese Porcelain and the Heraldry of the Empire, Oporto, 1988, p. 52. The author discusses that this is from a later service that had corrected the coat-of-arms in a rudimentary fashion. The earlier two services were wrongly interpreted and incomplete and therefore rejected by the family. This is illustrated by Nuno de Castro, op. cit., p. 51. A similar vase was sold in our London Rooms, 28 April 1999, lot. 177.
The shape of this ewer probably copies Spanish or Italian Renaissance silver ewers of the sixteenth century and examples in Chinese porcelain are rare. It is particularly unusual to find a blue and white ewer of this form as most other known pieces were made in the famille verte palette.

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