BK20
Further images
Of large size and bottle form, the compressed globular body rising to a tall slender neck with a bulb below the slightly everted rim, decorated in underglaze blue with later over-decoration in green, blue, yellow and red overglaze enamels. Vase One (left) painted around the body with a continuous scene of figures in a terraced garden, two holding offerings to another, with bannermen and standard bearers to either side, all among willow and rockwork, over-decorated with flowers and a five-clawed dragon. Vase Two (right) with a continuous outdoor scene with two officials, one kneeling towards the other, flanked by standard-bearers and attendants, with fine detailing to the robes. all among rocky crags and abundant foliage, an over-decorated dragon descending on the scene from above. Each vase decorated to the shoulder with a band of floral scroll, over-decorated in blue, the neck with tall Iznik-style flowers and scrolling tendrils in underglaze blue against an over-decorated red ground, the raised bulb decorated with scrolling lotus, each base glazed and with an apocryphal pseudo-mark in red.
Literature
The shape of these bottles only occurs for a short time in the 17th century. It is based on fritware bottles produced in the sixteenth century at Iznik, in Ottoman Turkey, which in turn derived from earlier metalwork bottles of the same form. Transitional bottles - such as the present vases - sensitively combine elements from these two different cultures, Islamic and Chinese. Of Islamic form, they are decorated with narrative scenes based on woodblock illustrations of classic Chinese stories, a motif that was particularly favoured on 17th century bottles of this shape.
According to Helen Espir's seminal work on over-decorated Chinese porcelain, this particular type of later enamel decoration on these 17th century vases would have been done in London between 1780 and 1830. It is rare to find porcelain before the Kangxi period later decorated, although we have seen one or two examples of smaller bottle vases but not with figures. However, this shape and design with narrative themes we have not seen before and do not know of any others.
It is interesting to note old master paintings by the Dutch artist Willem Kalf (1619-1693) showing Chinese blue and white porcelain of the 16th and 17th century This particular shape and period painted with narrative scenes on the body and tulip-like flowers on the neck can be seen in one of Kalf's still life paintings in the Guildhall Art Gallery in London see here
Two examples are in Burghley House, a grand country House in Lincolnshire. They are listed in the last will and testament of Elizabeth, Dowager Countess of Devonshire, written in 1690' as :
'A pair of Large double-neck Bottles blue and white about fifteen inches high some ffigures [sic] on them'
See our website for a ewer also shown in a still life by Willem Kalf still life oil painting by Willem Kalf, c. 1660, in the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (ac.no.1981.77). see here and here
An example of this shape is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, see here
Also see an example, also of large size (38cm high) in the Boymans Van Beuningen Museum collection.
