A RARE CANTON ENAMEL 'EUROPEAN-SUBJECT' VASE

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A RARE CANTON ENAMEL 'EUROPEAN-SUBJECT' VASE
QIANLONG SIX-CHARACTER SEALMARK AND OF THE PERIOD (1736-1795)

The flaring sides superbly enamelled on one side with a cartouche depicting a river landscape scene, detailed with a European gentleman dressed in breeches and wearing an unbuttoned yellow jacket, holding a tricorn hat in one hand, the other clutching a long stick, leaning in an animated stance toward his attentive dog, the reverse side similarly decorated, all against a dense network of scrolling rosettes on a stippled turquoise-ground, repeated on the angled shoulder and the tapered cylindrical neck, divided with a bands of black spirals against a yellow-ground at intervals, the elegant neck flanked by a pair of stylised scroll-form handles, enamelled in blue, raised on a splayed foot, the interior and underside of the base with white enamel, the base bearing the reign mark in blue enamel
8 3/4 in. (22.2 cm.) high

Lot Essay

The mirror image pair to the present vase is in the British Museum, London, illustrated by S. Jenyns and W. Watson, Chinese Art II, Rizzoli, New York, 1980, p. 162, pl. 113 (see fig. 1).

A related vase of similar design but with cartouches against a yellow-ground in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is illustrated in Enamel Ware in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, 1999, no. 120/141. A group of similarly decorated 'European-subject in landscape' vases are in the Beijing Palace Museum collection, cf. Splendors of a Flourishing Age, Macao, 2000, nos. 73, 79, 80, and 81.

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