The compressed globular body , painted in famille rose enamels with two scenes. On one side a lakeside garden with a scholar conversing with a young maiden, a female attendant bearing a tea‑tray approaches from the left. The reverse decorated with a weary traveller resting by the wayside while his groom tends to his horse. The shoulders enamelled with a wide band of green cell‑diaper with panels of flowers and dragon medallions below a collar of spurred scrolls. The recessed cover with lotus panels below a bud finial. The tripod stand decorated with a cloud collar apron of flowers, each angular leg with scrolls on a turquoise ground is set on a shell foot. A small shallow dish for the burner is supported by three flat braces extending from the knees of the tripod legs. The spout detailed with black scrollwork. A loose yellow metal handle bound with cane.
Literature
This form copies the form of an English George II silver tea kettle on a stand. For a closely related example but with a lobed body, see the silver gilt tea kettle by the 18th century goldsmith Matthew Lofthouse, made in 1732 for the Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales (1707-51). It is now in the royal collection, collection number RCIN 49123.
An identical Canton enamel example is in the Ostasiatiska Museet in Stockholm; and a very similar example is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, lacking its stand and burner, no. 488+A‑1872, this was bequeathed to the museum in 1872. See also Michael Gillingham, op. cit., p. 78, pl. 101, cf., an almost identical example; and Kjellberg, op. cit., 1975, p. 221., cf., a Canton enamel tea kettle of very similar form with a scene of figures at leisure.
Publications
Gordon Lang, 'Polychrome Decoration' in: A Catalogue of Oriental Ceramics and Works of Art, ed. Anita Gray, London, n.d., pp. 45, no. 120.
