WINTER EXHIBITION 2008 - Roger Keverne

67
A very fine cloisonné enamel vase
First half of the 18th century
Height: 15P in, 40.4 cm
the elegant, ovoid body rises from a tall, spreading foot, with a gilt rim, to a high shoulder
and a waisted neck, and terminates in an upright gilt mouth. The body is finely enamelled in
various colours on a turquoise ground with scrolling lotus, the leaves tied in places, and four
large downward-facing bats, all between a band of tied lotus-filled cloud lappets around the
shoulder and a band of smaller cloud lappets above the foot. The neck is decorated with four
upright leaves, each filled with an archaistic taotie mask on a speckled greenish-blue ground,
reserved against lotus scroll, all beneath a band of small cloud lappets. The foot is decorated
similarly to the neck, with small pendent leaves.
Formerly in a European private collection.
Such vases that rely on form and decoration, without the need for gilt-bronze embellishment,
are rare.
A vase with very similar decoration is illustrated in Brinker and Lutz, Chinese Cloisonné: The
Pierre Uldry Collection, no. 228, and discussed on p. 132, where it is noted that it “can be
assumed to date from the Yongzheng period; [its] colour palette still resembles that found on
Kangxi cloisonné objects, with the exception of the rose pink, more widely used by Yongzheng
times. This dating should apply especially to the large shouldered jar (no. 228) decorated
with stylised flowering scrolls, six ruyi-shaped, linked medallions, and dissolved motifs freely
adapted from ornamental schemes found on archaic bronzes.”
ROGER KEVERNE WINTER 2008 87