A set of gilt-bronze mounted three-piece porcelain vase garniture, the porcelain Qianlong period (1736-1795), the mounts Louis XV

Pascal Izarn, Paris

P. Izarn, Les porcelaines montées au XVIIIème siècle, 2015, cat. 20, pp.38-39.

One of the most desirable luxury objects of eighteenth-century collectors, mounted porcelains brought the rich colours and sophisticated decorative possibilities of Chinese porcelain in dialogue with the French art of creating glistening golden mounts using the mercury gilding. The mounts are typical of the Louis XV style, incorporating fluid foliate in undulating lines, and the porcelain incorporates distinctive pierced handles. While the present garniture features both zoomorphic and geometric handles, there is considerable variety in the forms that these take on Qianlong porcelain, including unusual hooked handles on a mounted celadon vase in the Getty Museum, Los Angeles (75.DI.69). Other examples of baluster vases with the same lustrous shade of ultramarine glaze sold at Christie’s Paris, 22^nd June 2005, lot 158 and Christie’s Monaco, 5^th December 1992, lot 51: the former was attributed to Duplessis, had elaborate elephant-form mounts and had irregular handles of a jagged profile, while the latter had the same blocky geometric handles as the present lot and was mounted in the Neoclassical Louis XVI style. A pair of mounted baluster-form vases in the same shade of blue but without handles can be seen at Waddesdon Manor, 2671.1 and 2671.2. Another garniture of one large and two smaller mounted baluster-form vases, again in the same colour with no handles, sold at Sotheby’s London, 24^th June 1988, lot 57 for £46,000.