Chinese Blue and White Snuff Bottle with Jade stopper, early C20th
Price: £45
A Chinese snuff bottle of flattened ovoid form, the stopper with a jade top above the cork sealed wand, decorated in underglaze blue with two birds amidst flowering peony or plum blossom, the base with a four character mark in underglaze blue. The paste of the foot and the fairly coarse style of the painting suggest a circa date to around 1900 or a little thereafter but the design is attractive and the bottle survives with its stopper and wand intact which is not always the case.
Chinese celadon glaze sake cup with shou symbols, Qing dynasty (1644-1912)
Price: £55
A Chinese celadon glazed cup, the curved walls above a short foot and flaring outwards slightly at the rim decorated in underglaze blue with six identical auspicious characters, the base unglazed and with a recessed foot. There are no easy parallels for this bowl, although there are various straight sided bowls with underglaze blue Chinese characters, optimistically marked as from the Xuande dynasty (1425-1435), and most likely modern. The celadon glaze here is of fine quality with minute bubbles (see especially images 3 & 5) and the form of the foot, with its recessed base is most unusual, indeed seemingly without parallel. The underglaze blue characters are for ‘shou’ (壽), meaning ‘longevity’, and often used either in character or abstract circular form as a decorative motif. Care has clearly been taken here and the paste of the foot is most certainly Chinese but while dating is highly uncertain it is unlikely to be later than the early twentieth century. The base has two scratched marks ( ‘A’ ‘R’??) which might be those of the bowl’s one time owner. Perhaps its next owner will be lucky enough to discover rather more about it!
Chinese Rose Medallion Saucer circa 1860
Price: £45
A Chinese saucer with a lightly lobed edge decorated in the Cantonese style with ‘c’ border panels of ladies with attendants and birds and flowers on a gilt ground with green enamel scroll work, butterflies and peony blooms. This well known design is termed ‘Rose Medallion’ from its palette of colours and the use of vignette panel scenes (the ‘medallions’). It was one of the successors to the ‘Mandarin’ wares produced for export in the late eighteenth century and evolved around 1840, being produced in a varying range of qualities until the end of the century. It was used to decorate vases, bowls and table wares and this saucer, originally with a matching cup, would have come from a small tea service. The work is good quality with no flaking to the enamels and the gilt detail to the ladies’ hair well preserved, implying a circa date of around 1860. While it has become detached from its original companions it can stand today as a decorative item in itself and a fine recollection of a once popular style.
Chinese silk embroidery panel, early C20th, later framed
Price: £75
A very fine quality Chinese silk embroidered panel, the main design showing two birds sitting on branches of flowering lotus, the scene in two halves in close mirror image, within an inner gilt thread border of stylised clouds and an outer border of repeating butterflies. The precision and detail of the stitching display the very best work of the Chinese needlework craftsmen, most likely women, working in the early twentieth century. Embroidered panels were exported to the West, sometimes in their own Chinese made frames as screens or table screens and sometimes unmounted for framing on arrival. The frame here is modern, although highly sympathetic, but the fabric borders at the edge, a common feature of these pieces, look to be contemporary with the panel itself suggesting that an older frame was recently replaced. The combination is most successful, and the embroidery itself remains in excellent condition with no loss to the threads or staining to the silk backing, which is not always the case, making this a fine decorative addition for a contemporary interior.
Chinese Mandarin Pattern Spoon Tray, Qianlong period circa 1760
Price: £350
A Chinese Spoon Tray of typical form with lobed hexagonal sides and a flat unglazed base, decorated in 'famille rose' enamels to the centre with a court figure scene depicting a male courtier sitting on a low table surrounded by ladies and a child (the term 'mandarin' derives from the name of the male court officials who are so often seen in the scenes decorated in this style), the border with small vignette panels in puce and orange enamel depicting landscape scenes and flowers on a gilt stylised floral ground, the exterior plain.
This piece comes from an original tea service which would have comprised a wide variety of objects decorated in the same pattern to include a teapot, cover and stand, a caddy and cover, a sugar bowl, a cream jug and cover, bowls and saucers and so forth. The form can be seen (along with a matching teapot stand) at Lunsingh Scheurleer, Chinese Export Porcelain pl 149. Dating is to the middle of the Qianlong period (1736-1795) around 1760. The quality of the decoration speaks for itself and this piece has survived intact with very little wear to the decoration.