A VERY FINE PAIR OF CHINESE FAMILLE ROSE PHEASANTS

SECOND HALF 18TH CENTURY

Details

A VERY FINE PAIR OF CHINESE FAMILLE ROSE PHEASANTS
Second half 18th Century
Modelled standing looking alertly to the left and right, boldly and brightly enamelled all over, the heads with green flat crests, red cheeks and iron-red beaks, the necks and breasts with horizontal sepia feather markings on pale yellow and sepia grounds, the back feathers puce, the wings and long in-curving tails with feathers individually picked out in iron-red, purple, turquoise, yellow, blue and pink, the iron-red legs and claws astride and grasping the knobbly rocky bases dotted in pale blue, green, and sepia, one crest end chipped, a few very minor edge chips and enamel flakes
12¾ in. (32 cm.) high (2)

Provenance

Mrs. John E. Rovensky.
Previously sold Sotheby's London, 5 March 1974, lot 130 (£60,000 to Mrs. Glatz).

Lot Essay

A very similar pair of pheasants from the Lady Sarah Churchill Collection was sold in our New York Rooms, 23 and 24 September, 1988, lot 479; this pair is now in the Hodroff Collection, illustrated by D. S. Howard, The Choice of the Private Trader, 1994, no. 314, pp. 262 and 263, where the author comments that these figures 'represent the finest and most natural models of pheasants made, and would have been at the top of the price range available to the private merchant'. Another very similar pair sold in these Rooms, 2 November 1992, lot 180.

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