A massive pair of blue and white baluster vases

KANGXI

細節

A massive pair of blue and white baluster vases
Kangxi
Each side painted with two broad panels, one depicting a court scene with a majestic couple surrounded by numerous figures at both ends of a flight of stairs, the other with a warrior on horseback attended by footmen and riding past a stone wall in front of a palace, the European-inspired building embellished with ornate brickwork, pennants rising from the domed roofs, the four panels divided by vertical bands of morning glory, all above a cracked-ice pattern band reserved with roundels, the slightly tapering lower section with a row of descending pointed floral and plain leaves, the base encircled by a zigzag-pattern border repeated on the shoulder, the waisted neck with two rows in mirror image of floral trefoils alternated by stiff leaves (one with rim crack, the base pierced with three apertures, one with restuck chip, small rim chips)
96.5 cm high, wood stands (2)

拍品專文

These vases are similar in type to the famous 'Soldier Vases' or 'Dragonervasen' in the Japanese Palace at Dresden, noted in the first inventory of the collections in 1723; Cf. Schätze Chinas aus Museen der DDR, Catalogue, pl.214 and 215, pp.312-313.
It is recorded that during the 17th and 18th Centuries, German princes and dukes sold or hired out their soldiers in exchange for recently imported Chinese porcelain. It has been recorded that in 1717, six hundred cavalrymen were worth 151 pieces which included 18 large vases such as the ones above.