Ref: W42
Archive item - not for sale
Chinese Canton enamel shell basin and ewer, mid 18th century, the ewer imitating European metal shapes with distinctive helmet spout and looped handle, on a domed and waisted foot with a radiating lotus petal collar, brightly enamelled in fine famille rose palette with peonies and scrolling flowers, two large pendant ruyi heads at the rim piercing elaborate bands of scrolling floral meanders alternating with smaller scroll bands, the scallop shell-shaped basin with fluted panels and standing on three conical feet, decorated overall with a dense flower meander and entwined peonies within scrolling foliate borders in pinks, blues and greens radiating from central ruyi shaped panels. diameter of basin: 14 3/4in. (37.5cm.). A very similar enamel ewer and basin from the J.A. Lloyd Hyde Collection, is illustrated in the Chinese Painted Enamels, The China Institute in America, 1969/70, Exhibition Catalogue, no. 8 where it is suggested that this shape is copying 17th century Portuguese silver orginals.Cf. Howard and Ayers, China for the West, op. cit., pl. 125, for an example of this shape in porcelain, dated 1720-1725, in the Mottahedeh collection SOLD
