LATE 18TH/EARLY 19TH CENTURY

Details

A PAIR OF FAMILLE ROSE CAPARISONED ELEPHANTS
LATE 18TH/EARLY 19TH CENTURY
Modeled in mirror image, each elephant is shown standing foursquare with head turned to one side and has a washy taupe hide finely delineated with markings to simulate wrinkles and hair. Each is caparisoned in colorful trappings including a yellow-ground blanket decorated with a chime suspended amidst bats above frothy waves and tasseled fringe, and a pink saddle into which fits a gu-shaped vase made in imitation of cloisonné enamel.
10½ in. (26.8 cm.) long (2)

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Lot Essay

A very similar elephant in the Palace Museum, Beijing, decorated in the same palette, with the exception of the saddle which is picked out in blue rather than pink, is illustrated in Yinliuzhai shuoci yizhu (Commentary on Porcelain from the Studio of Drinking Streams), Beijing, 2005, p. 450, fig. 9-43, where it is attributed to the Qianlong period. A pair of closely related elephants from the Copeland Collection, in the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, is illustrated in The Copeland Collection - Chinese and Japanese Ceramic Figures, Milan, 1991, pp. 196-97, no. 94.

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