LATE 18TH/EARLY 19TH CENTURY

Details

A RARE BLANC DE CHINE 'MONTGOLFIER' VESSEL
LATE 18TH/EARLY 19TH CENTURY
Imaginatively modelled as a hot-air balloon tethered to a junk-form gondola with molded bands on the sides, the long, curved spout forming the prow of the boat while the curved handle forms the stern, with a band of conjoined circles on the flared oval foot, covered with a glaze of milk-white tone
9½ in. (24.1 cm.) high

Provenance

Chait Galleries, New York.

Lot Essay

A very similar vessel is illustrated by R.H. Blumenfield, Blanc de Chine, Berkeley/Toronto, 2002, p. 81 B. See, also, a slightly different vessel of this form illustrated by P.J. Donnelly, Blanc de Chine, New York/Washington, 1969, pl. 128 B. In discussing this piece, p. 199, the author notes that pieces of this form would have had to be made after 1783, as that was the year of the Montgolfier brothers' experiments with hot air balloons in Paris, which were repeated by Lunardi in London in 1784 and again in 1785.

A similar example was sold in our London rooms, 5 and 6 July 1984, lot 380.

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