18TH CENTURY

Details

TWO FAMILLE ROSE MODELS OF CRANES
18TH CENTURY
Each standing on brown and sepia mottled rockwork mounds with their right legs raised, their heads turned sharply to their left, their white bodies finely incised with feather markings and their neck feathers and wing-tip feathers picked out in black enamel, their crests enamelled deep pink and their beaks and legs green
13¼ in. (33.5 cm.) high (2)

Provenance

Sir Edwin A. G. Manton

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis. From time to time, Christie's may offer a lot which it owns in whole or in part. This is such a lot.

Further details

END OF SALE

Lot Essay

The crane, an important symbol of longevity in China, is often shown alongside the strong and long-lived pine. A very similar but larger (43cm.) single model is in the British Museum, Ancient Chinese Trade Ceramics, Taibei, 1994, catalogue no. 90; another, smaller and plainly coloured, single example in the Copeland Collection is illustrated by W.R. Sargent, The Copeland Collection, Salem, 1991, p. 165, who discusses the history of China trade orders for the waterbirds. M. Beurdeley and G. Raindre, Qing Porcelain, Famille Verte, Famille Rose, London, 1987, p. 108, note that these birds must have been made also for the Imperial Palace, citing a May 1742 entry in the notebook of Tang Ying (director of the Imperial kilns 1736-56) reading: "Received an order to make pairs of storks that should be depicted viewed from the front."

More from Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art Including Export Art

View All