BK14 BK15
formed of undulating lobes, applied with a gilt pomegranate head and stem to either side, painted on the body with, on one side, a man riding a horse with an attendant in a landscape dotted with trees and pagodas and mountains in the distance, the other side painted with a man in a boat in a watery landscape with pagodas and a house in the background, the covers with three raised pomegranates, each bursting open to reveal seeds detailed in iron red enamel and gilt, the gilt finial in the form of a slender twisting stem, further decorated with floral sprays and an intricate border of roe and flowers around the rim, the base glazed.
Literature
In Chinese art, the pomegranate represents fertility. It is possible that these unusual tureens were designed originally for export to the Iberian Peninsula; the pomegranate was the emblem of the Kingdom of Grenada, and some such tureens are known to have been discovered in Portugal.
For a similar example, see William R. Sargent, Chinese Porcelain in the Conde Collection, Madrid, p.254-255, no.101. Also see Maria Antonia Pinto de Matos, The RA Collection of Chinese Ceramics, Vol.2, no.245.
A famille rose example can be found in China for the West, by David Howard and John Ayers, p.184-185, no. 181
For another pomegranate-form tureen decorated in underglaze blue, see Jorge Welsh, Fauna & Flora – A Collection of Qing Dynasty Porcelain, Jorge Welsh Oriental Porcelain and Works of Art, London and Lisbon, 2002.
