Lot Essay
While five-piece garnitures, used as decoration in grand European houses, were favored throughout the Kangxi period, the deeply molded shapes of the present lot and its flat, splayed bases are unusual. These characteristics are also found in lot 3, a garniture enameled in a palette closer to late Ming wucai than to later Kangxi famille verte. Both lots may be early in the Kangxi period. A. du Boulay illustrates a set of three very similar blue and white baluster vases and covers in Christie's Pictorial History of Chinese Ceramics, p. 228.