Lot Essay
The mounting of Yixing wares was mainly executed in the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark at the end of the 17th Century and the beginning of the 18th Century. Various examples, particularly tea-pots, survive, such as that with a lid surmounted by a dancing boy in the Museum Mr. Simon van Grÿn, Dordrecht, and one surmounted by a soldier in the Princessenhof in Leeuwarden (D.F. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Chinesisches und japanisches Porzellan in europäischen Fassungen, Braunschweig, 1980, p. 293, illus. 245a and p. 296, illus. 251a, repectively). A further Yixing tea-pot surmounted by Cupid is in a painting by Pieter Gerritsz van Roestraten (d. 1700), sold anonymously in these Rooms, 8 May 1936, lot 70.
This shape of vessel would secularly have been used for beer, but would originally have been for milk tea in the Lamaist monastries which flourished throughout the Chinese Empire during the reign of Kangxi (1662-1722). Generally this type of vessel was not made for export, but there are further mounted versions known. A ewer of closely related shape with an identical wall-lip (Dou mu hu), but with polychrome glazing and French ormolu mounts of the early 18th Century, is in the J. Paul Getty Museum (F.J.B. Watson and G. Wilson, Mounted Oriental Porcelain, Malibu, 1982, p. 23, cat 1.). A pair of Louis XVI aubergine porcelain ewers of closely related shape, with ormolu mounts by Pierre Gouthière and supplied to Marie-Antoinette, was sold by the Trustees of the Luton Hoo Foundation in these Rooms, 9 June 1994, lot 35.
This shape of vessel would secularly have been used for beer, but would originally have been for milk tea in the Lamaist monastries which flourished throughout the Chinese Empire during the reign of Kangxi (1662-1722). Generally this type of vessel was not made for export, but there are further mounted versions known. A ewer of closely related shape with an identical wall-lip (Dou mu hu), but with polychrome glazing and French ormolu mounts of the early 18th Century, is in the J. Paul Getty Museum (F.J.B. Watson and G. Wilson, Mounted Oriental Porcelain, Malibu, 1982, p. 23, cat 1.). A pair of Louis XVI aubergine porcelain ewers of closely related shape, with ormolu mounts by Pierre Gouthière and supplied to Marie-Antoinette, was sold by the Trustees of the Luton Hoo Foundation in these Rooms, 9 June 1994, lot 35.