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Lot Essay
This massive form, a tour de force of the Chinese potters, has been known as "soldier" or "dragoon" vases since Frederick Augustus the Strong (1670-1733), Elector of Saxony, King of Poland, patron of the Meissen factory and avid collector of Chinese porcelain, traded a regiment of 600 soldiers for 18 such vases from the Schloss Oranienburg collection of Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia in 1717.
Hunting scenes became part of the Chinese porcelain painters' repetoire during the 17th century, as more colloquial, free-wheeling subjects began to supplant the more formal Ming patterns. A. du Boulay, Christie's Pictorial History of Chinese Ceramics, p. 194, illustrates three blue and white triple gourd vases datable to about 1640 with hunters on horseback. The subject seemed to appeal immediately to the export market (see S.T. Yeo and J. Martin, Chinese Blue and White Ceramics, p. 221, for a typical Transitional period export tankard with Chinese hunters). By the Kangxi period it was well-established, as in the popular blue and white hunting scene dishes with petal-molded rims.
The present vases display the scene in tones of iron-red and gilt as well as underglaze blue, and between elaborate borders that reflect the late Baroque fashion of the circa 1720 era. The borders' tassel-hung, angular strapwork issuing scrolling acanthus is reminiscent of the well-known Ataide services, particularly the primarily blue and white one illustrated by N. de Castro, Chinese Porcelain and the Heraldry of the Empire, p. 53
Hunting scenes became part of the Chinese porcelain painters' repetoire during the 17th century, as more colloquial, free-wheeling subjects began to supplant the more formal Ming patterns. A. du Boulay, Christie's Pictorial History of Chinese Ceramics, p. 194, illustrates three blue and white triple gourd vases datable to about 1640 with hunters on horseback. The subject seemed to appeal immediately to the export market (see S.T. Yeo and J. Martin, Chinese Blue and White Ceramics, p. 221, for a typical Transitional period export tankard with Chinese hunters). By the Kangxi period it was well-established, as in the popular blue and white hunting scene dishes with petal-molded rims.
The present vases display the scene in tones of iron-red and gilt as well as underglaze blue, and between elaborate borders that reflect the late Baroque fashion of the circa 1720 era. The borders' tassel-hung, angular strapwork issuing scrolling acanthus is reminiscent of the well-known Ataide services, particularly the primarily blue and white one illustrated by N. de Castro, Chinese Porcelain and the Heraldry of the Empire, p. 53