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Lot Essay
Asano Souichiro was an influential entrepreneur at the turn of the 19th/20th century in Japan. He came from a small doctor's family in a village near Mt. Fuji but had become one of the wealthiest person in Japan by the time of his death, founding one of the fifteen largest Zaibatsu in Japan. He was an avid collector of Chinese Art, in particular Qing Imperial porcelains.
The current pair of jars are exceptionally well painted and very rare. No identical example appears to have been published to date. The combination of Chinese amaranth painted overall in iron-red, and various fruiting and flowering branches executed in the pastel-like famille rose palette, creates an interesting contrast and is fairly unusual. Such composition is very similar to a Daoguang-marked vase also decorated with iron-red nandina and branches bearing peony and chrysanthemum blossoms, between ruyi-head bands, from the Beijing Palace Museum Collection and illustrated in Porcelains with Cloisonne Enamel Decoration and Famille Rose Decoration, The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1999, no. 192.
The depiction of a continuous scene between coloured-grounds bordered by ruyi-heads appears to be a favoured decorative scheme on Daoguang famille rose porcelains. Refer for example to several Daoguang vases painted with continuous floral scenes in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, op. cit., nos. 189-190, 191 and 193.
The current pair of jars are exceptionally well painted and very rare. No identical example appears to have been published to date. The combination of Chinese amaranth painted overall in iron-red, and various fruiting and flowering branches executed in the pastel-like famille rose palette, creates an interesting contrast and is fairly unusual. Such composition is very similar to a Daoguang-marked vase also decorated with iron-red nandina and branches bearing peony and chrysanthemum blossoms, between ruyi-head bands, from the Beijing Palace Museum Collection and illustrated in Porcelains with Cloisonne Enamel Decoration and Famille Rose Decoration, The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1999, no. 192.
The depiction of a continuous scene between coloured-grounds bordered by ruyi-heads appears to be a favoured decorative scheme on Daoguang famille rose porcelains. Refer for example to several Daoguang vases painted with continuous floral scenes in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, op. cit., nos. 189-190, 191 and 193.