A MASSIVE PAIR OF FAMILLE ROSE BALUSTER VASES AND COVERS

CIRCA 1745

Details

A MASSIVE PAIR OF FAMILLE ROSE BALUSTER VASES AND COVERS
Circa 1745
Each enamelled in a vivid famille rose palette with a pair of phoenix perched on weathered blue rockwork in a lattice-fenced garden, a knarled branch behind them sprouting with passion flower, peony and prunus and smaller sprigs growing from the grass below, all between bands of ruyi heads below and iron-red and gilt above, the neck with an elaborate collar of pattern-filled lappets, repeated on the domed cover which is surmounted by a colorful Buddhist lion
56in (142.2cm.) high (2)

Lot Essay

A very similar pair is in the Long Gallery at Osterly House, probably the vases referred to in a 1786 diary entry by Sophie de la Roche: "There are tremendous Japanese vases in there also, large enough to conceal Carl" (her younger brother). See A. du Boulay, The Porcelain at Osterly, Apollo, April 1995, p. 19. Other pairs have been sold at Christie's London, by Lt. Col. A. Heywood-Lonsdale, 6 June 1957, lot 21; by Edmund de Rothschild, 28 July 1975, lot 182; and from a private European collection, 2 December 1998, lot 110.