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 disseminated down through the Court to the English House such as Burghley. Its importance was high enough to warrant French designers, such as Daniel Marot, to produce elaborate overmantels so that these procelains could be displayed prominently in the Country House interior. The epitomy of the designs are the jars known as 'Hampton Court jars' due to their association with Queen Mary II's collection at Hampton Court.
The earliest account of such jars is to be found in an account of a sale in Holland in 1680 in '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 l689 and by her death in December l694 she had amassed a large collection of porcelain. In an inventory of March 24th, l696-7 there are listed 780 of china with their exact positions in each of eleven rooms including 'coloured jars of six squares.' 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, l693 and April 23, l696,) and Defoe's Tore thro' the Whole Island of Great Britian (l724 to l727).
The above pair of jars are particularly rare example of the Hampton Court type, being somewhat higher than the other known examples, A similar pair sold December 2, l980 in Christie's Great Rooms, London which were known to have descended from King William IV to his illegitimate daughter the Lady Augusta Fitzclerance, 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, lst 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.
Further similar examples are in the Johanneum at Dresden formed by Augustus the Strong, King of Poland Elector of Saxony between 1694-l705; Woburn Abbey; and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Cf. Sekai toji zenshu, vol. 8, pl. 37; Nihon no toji, vol. 9, no. 5
There is also a privately printed 'Catalogue of the Chinese and Japanese Porcelain and of the Delft fayence at the Palaces of Hampton Court and St. James's compiled by Edward Dillon, M.A. (l910), nos. 72,73 for the Hampton Court vases.
The earliest account of such jars is to be found in an account of a sale in Holland in 1680 in '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 l689 and by her death in December l694 she had amassed a large collection of porcelain. In an inventory of March 24th, l696-7 there are listed 780 of china with their exact positions in each of eleven rooms including 'coloured jars of six squares.' 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, l693 and April 23, l696,) and Defoe's Tore thro' the Whole Island of Great Britian (l724 to l727).
The above pair of jars are particularly rare example of the Hampton Court type, being somewhat higher than the other known examples, A similar pair sold December 2, l980 in Christie's Great Rooms, London which were known to have descended from King William IV to his illegitimate daughter the Lady Augusta Fitzclerance, 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, lst 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.
Further similar examples are in the Johanneum at Dresden formed by Augustus the Strong, King of Poland Elector of Saxony between 1694-l705; Woburn Abbey; and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Cf. Sekai toji zenshu, vol. 8, pl. 37; Nihon no toji, vol. 9, no. 5
There is also a privately printed 'Catalogue of the Chinese and Japanese Porcelain and of the Delft fayence at the Palaces of Hampton Court and St. James's compiled by Edward Dillon, M.A. (l910), nos. 72,73 for the Hampton Court vases.