Lot Essay
The Kakiemon porcelain which first arrived in Europe through the Dutch East India trade around the 1660s heralded the beginning of some of the finest Oriental porcelain collections. With the support of Royal patronage the porcelain spread down through the Court to the English House such as Burghley, Sherborne Castle and Drayton. Its importance was sufficient to warrant French designers, such as Daniel Marot, producing elaborate overmantels so that these porcelains could be displayed prominently in the Country House interior. The archetype of the designs are the jars known as "Hampton Court jars" from their association with Queen Mary II's collection at Hampton Court.
The earliest mention of such jars is to be found in an account of a sale in Holland in 1680: "The red assortment was much desired. 36 show pots for cabinets, cost price 2 florins, nine s.sold at Enkuisen for 140 florins" (the reference to red assortment was the term used for polychrome decorated vases in the 17th century).
Queen Mary first visited Hampton Court in 1689 and by her death in December 1694 she had amassed a large collection of porcelain. In an inventory of March 24th, 1696-7 there are listed 780 items of china with their exact positions in each of eleven rooms including "coloured jars of six squares". She created a celebrated porcelain-furnished apartment as part of the Thames-side banqueting pavilion at Hampton court whose celebrated "Water Gallery" was likewise "decked with china". Her collection no doubt included pieces inherited from her father King James II as well as items that she brought over from Holland, where such polychromed wares were already noted by 1680 for the high prices fetched at auction. Descriptions of the collection can be found in The Travels of Celia Fiennes who visited Hampton Court soon after the Queen's death "There was the Water Gallery that opened into a balcony to the water and was decked with china...", John Evelyn's diaries (July 13, 1693 and April 23, 1696) and Defoe's Tore thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724 to 1727), who credited her for having introduced the custom of "furnishing houses with china-ware".
The reasons for the name a "Hampton Court vases" are somewhat convoluted. There is, at Hampton Court, at least one pair of such jars; there are also others in other royal palaces. One pair of these was exhibited at the British Museum in Porcelain for Palaces in 1990, another pair at the Ashmolean, 1989-90 in the exhibition Flowers of Fire, Kakiemon Porcelain from the English Country House. In 1949 Arthur Lane suggested that the jars at Hampton Court derived from the celebrated collection of Queen Mary II, though he did not identify them with descriptions in the inventory of Kensington House (Palace) taken after Queen Mary's death, on 24 March 1696/7. Attempts have been made to link the existing jars at Hampton Court with this inventory; there was, in the Old Bedchamber, "one coloured jarr of six squares" which because of its position in the room is likely to have been the pair to "one jarr & cover of six squares"; there was also "one coloured jarr & cover of six squares" over the chimney. These pieces cannot be those at Hampton Court, even supposing that two were a pair, as all the porcelain then at Kensington House was given to the 1st Earl of Albermarle in 1699.
There is no evidence that any of Queen Mary's porcelain other than that at Kensington (admittedly, the vast majority) passed to Albermarle. Other porcelain held in other palaces as decoration may well have been retained. Thus, although the vase now at Hampton Court cannot be identified with the descriptions of anything at Kensington House, these, as well as others in the Royal Collection, may well come from Queen Mary.
This shape of vase comes in several sizes as well as in a variety (perhaps of five or six) decorative schemes, as comparison between those in the Royal Collection well demonstrates. It would seem that this pattern was intended for display with the pair of birds facing the front, as identical vignettes are painted on the reverse, which would be seen reflected in pier-glasses or overmantel-mirrors. In her Gallery at Kensington Palace, Queen Mary enlivened the room by displaying porcelain, framed by golden show-drapery, above the mirrored door-entablatures as well as above the chimneypieces.
During the 1720s the French merchant Rodolphe Lemaire encouraged the Meissen factory in its imitation of Kakiemon wares, which were later retailed by the leading Parisian marchands-merciers. It is likely that the inscription on the bottom of these vases was applied in the early 19th century by one of the London dealers such as Edward Holmes Baldock or Mr Fogg.
A similar pair sold December 2, 1980 in these Rooms which were known to have descended from King William IV to his illegitimate daughter the Lady Augusta Fitzclarence, and it is probable that these came from the Royal Collection. some porcelain from the original collection has been dispersed, since after Mary's death a proportion was left to Arnold Joost van Keppel, 1st Earl of Albermarle, but several examples including similar pairs are still at Hampton Court with others in the Royal Collections at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. A further pair sold in these Rooms, 17 June 1991, Lot 278.
Cf. "Catalogue of the Chinese and Japanese Porcelain and of the Delft fayence at the Palaces of Hampton Court and St. James's Dillon Edward, M.A. (London, 1910), The Hampton Court vases, nos 72 and 73.
Sekai Toji Zenshu, vol. 8, pl.37; Nihon no Toji, vol.9, no.5
Impey O.I., Christie's International Magazine, June 1991
Marschner Joanna, "China Mania" Recreated at Kensington Palace, Christie's International Magazine
Shulsky Linda R., Kensington and de Voorst, Two Porcelain Collections, Journal of the History of Collections, Vol.2, no.1, 1990
The earliest mention of such jars is to be found in an account of a sale in Holland in 1680: "The red assortment was much desired. 36 show pots for cabinets, cost price 2 florins, nine s.sold at Enkuisen for 140 florins" (the reference to red assortment was the term used for polychrome decorated vases in the 17th century).
Queen Mary first visited Hampton Court in 1689 and by her death in December 1694 she had amassed a large collection of porcelain. In an inventory of March 24th, 1696-7 there are listed 780 items of china with their exact positions in each of eleven rooms including "coloured jars of six squares". She created a celebrated porcelain-furnished apartment as part of the Thames-side banqueting pavilion at Hampton court whose celebrated "Water Gallery" was likewise "decked with china". Her collection no doubt included pieces inherited from her father King James II as well as items that she brought over from Holland, where such polychromed wares were already noted by 1680 for the high prices fetched at auction. Descriptions of the collection can be found in The Travels of Celia Fiennes who visited Hampton Court soon after the Queen's death "There was the Water Gallery that opened into a balcony to the water and was decked with china...", John Evelyn's diaries (July 13, 1693 and April 23, 1696) and Defoe's Tore thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724 to 1727), who credited her for having introduced the custom of "furnishing houses with china-ware".
The reasons for the name a "Hampton Court vases" are somewhat convoluted. There is, at Hampton Court, at least one pair of such jars; there are also others in other royal palaces. One pair of these was exhibited at the British Museum in Porcelain for Palaces in 1990, another pair at the Ashmolean, 1989-90 in the exhibition Flowers of Fire, Kakiemon Porcelain from the English Country House. In 1949 Arthur Lane suggested that the jars at Hampton Court derived from the celebrated collection of Queen Mary II, though he did not identify them with descriptions in the inventory of Kensington House (Palace) taken after Queen Mary's death, on 24 March 1696/7. Attempts have been made to link the existing jars at Hampton Court with this inventory; there was, in the Old Bedchamber, "one coloured jarr of six squares" which because of its position in the room is likely to have been the pair to "one jarr & cover of six squares"; there was also "one coloured jarr & cover of six squares" over the chimney. These pieces cannot be those at Hampton Court, even supposing that two were a pair, as all the porcelain then at Kensington House was given to the 1st Earl of Albermarle in 1699.
There is no evidence that any of Queen Mary's porcelain other than that at Kensington (admittedly, the vast majority) passed to Albermarle. Other porcelain held in other palaces as decoration may well have been retained. Thus, although the vase now at Hampton Court cannot be identified with the descriptions of anything at Kensington House, these, as well as others in the Royal Collection, may well come from Queen Mary.
This shape of vase comes in several sizes as well as in a variety (perhaps of five or six) decorative schemes, as comparison between those in the Royal Collection well demonstrates. It would seem that this pattern was intended for display with the pair of birds facing the front, as identical vignettes are painted on the reverse, which would be seen reflected in pier-glasses or overmantel-mirrors. In her Gallery at Kensington Palace, Queen Mary enlivened the room by displaying porcelain, framed by golden show-drapery, above the mirrored door-entablatures as well as above the chimneypieces.
During the 1720s the French merchant Rodolphe Lemaire encouraged the Meissen factory in its imitation of Kakiemon wares, which were later retailed by the leading Parisian marchands-merciers. It is likely that the inscription on the bottom of these vases was applied in the early 19th century by one of the London dealers such as Edward Holmes Baldock or Mr Fogg.
A similar pair sold December 2, 1980 in these Rooms which were known to have descended from King William IV to his illegitimate daughter the Lady Augusta Fitzclarence, and it is probable that these came from the Royal Collection. some porcelain from the original collection has been dispersed, since after Mary's death a proportion was left to Arnold Joost van Keppel, 1st Earl of Albermarle, but several examples including similar pairs are still at Hampton Court with others in the Royal Collections at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. A further pair sold in these Rooms, 17 June 1991, Lot 278.
Cf. "Catalogue of the Chinese and Japanese Porcelain and of the Delft fayence at the Palaces of Hampton Court and St. James's Dillon Edward, M.A. (London, 1910), The Hampton Court vases, nos 72 and 73.
Sekai Toji Zenshu, vol. 8, pl.37; Nihon no Toji, vol.9, no.5
Impey O.I., Christie's International Magazine, June 1991
Marschner Joanna, "China Mania" Recreated at Kensington Palace, Christie's International Magazine
Shulsky Linda R., Kensington and de Voorst, Two Porcelain Collections, Journal of the History of Collections, Vol.2, no.1, 1990