A RARE BLUE AND WHITE 'BONNART' JAR AND COVER

CIRCA 1700-10

Details

A RARE BLUE AND WHITE 'BONNART' JAR AND COVER
CIRCA 1700-10
Painted with four roundels of sumptuously dressed French court ladies at leisure pursuits in garden settings, one seated beside a fountain, one on a swing made of ribbons, one reaching out to pluck a flower from a tree growing in a large jardinère, and the last reclining, enjoying the scent from a floral sprig, the underside with a ribbon-tied Artemisia leaf
15½ in. (39.3 cm.) high (2)

Provenance

The Mildred R. and Rafi Y. Mottahedeh Collection; Sotheby's, New York, 30 January 1985, lot 25.

Literature

Howard, The Choice of the Private Trader, p. 235, no. 278.
Howard and Ayers, China for the West, vol. I, pp. 79-80, no. 37.

Exhibited

China Institute in America, 1973-74, no. 11.
Virginia Museum, 1981-82.
Sotheby's, 1984.

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Lot Essay

After late 17th century engravings of fashionable court figures by the French brothers Nicholas, Robert and Henri Bonnart, including images from 'The Elements', 'The Five Senses' and 'The Three Graces'. The brothers Bonnart were famed for their prints of the latest fashions in court costume, which they sold from studios in the rue St. Jacques. Howard & Ayers note (op. cit., pp. 77-80) that these images were influential not just in France, but throughout Europe, where French fashions were followed closely. Larger versions can be seen at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, and at Loosdrecht in the Kastel-Museum Sypesteyn (see Lunsingh Scheurleer, pl. 127).

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