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Lot Essay
The present vases compare very closely with the Famille rose porcelain 'hundred deer' vases, in size, shape and in the composition of deer in landscape. Cf. a vase of Qianlong period illustrated in Porcelains with Cloisonné Enamel Decoration and Famille Rose Decoration, The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1999, pl. 85.
The theme of 'hundred deer' was adopted on porcelains in the middle Ming period and was obviously one close to the Qianlong emperor's heart. His appreciation of the theme also extended to cloisonné since a plaque from the collection of S. Soames, decorated with a river landscape through which wander the 'hundred deer' (see Sir Harry Garner, Chinese and Japanese Cloisonné Enamels, Faber & Faber, London, 1962, p. 93 and pl. 77), is inscribed on the back of the plaque with a Qianlong poem in which the emperor refers to the deer with their young in the royal park, and how they are free from fear because they are safe guarded by imperial decree from attack by archers with their arrows.
The theme of 'hundred deer' was adopted on porcelains in the middle Ming period and was obviously one close to the Qianlong emperor's heart. His appreciation of the theme also extended to cloisonné since a plaque from the collection of S. Soames, decorated with a river landscape through which wander the 'hundred deer' (see Sir Harry Garner, Chinese and Japanese Cloisonné Enamels, Faber & Faber, London, 1962, p. 93 and pl. 77), is inscribed on the back of the plaque with a Qianlong poem in which the emperor refers to the deer with their young in the royal park, and how they are free from fear because they are safe guarded by imperial decree from attack by archers with their arrows.