Baluster vase
Category
Ceramics
Date
1710 (circa) - 1720 (circa)
Materials
Ceramic
Order this imageCollection
Charlecote Park, Warwickshire
NT 532384
Summary
One of a pair of jars, porcelain, round, of baluster shape with domed lid with lotus bud finial, made in Jingdezhen, China, early eighteenth century. It is decorated with a powder blue glaze painted in gold with vignettes of birds, butterflies and flowers surrounded by borders of stylised lotus flowers and scrolling tendrils.
Full description
The mottled blue glaze was achieved by taking a small tube, covering one end with gauze, dipping it in the liquid cobalt-oxide-infused glaze and then blowing into the tube to scatter the glaze across the surface of the porcelain. This method was described by François Xavier d’Entrecolles (1664–1741), a Jesuit missionary active in China in the early eighteenth century (i). A historic mark, “Lot 441”, is visible on the underside of the lid rim. This probably relates to the Fonthill Abbey sale, attended by George Hammond Lucy (1789-1845) in 1823. Although lot 441 was not recorded as an item purchased by Lucy, the lot number corresponds with the auction catalogue description of ‘Three blue and gold mandarin jars and cover’ (ii). Lucy’s copy of the auction catalogue is annotated with the initials JL beside this lot, which may refer to his brother, John Lucy (1790-1874). The third jar has not been located. It may have been in the possession of John Lucy and subsequently sold at auction upon his death (iii). The Fonthill Abbey auction was a sale from the collection of William Thomas Beckford (1760-1844) in 1823. Beckford was a wealthy absentee plantation landlord and enslaver, inheriting 15 Jamaican plantation in 1770. Using profits derived from the labour of more than 1,000 enslaved people, Beckford acquired a substantial collection, building Fonthill Abbey to house it (iv). After a decline in sugar profits, lawsuits and mismanagement Beckford was forced to sell the collection and abbey (v). The sale of the collection was originally planned in 1822. In this auction catalogue, the vases were listed as 'Two blue and gold mandarin jars and covers' (vi). This auction did not proceed, and the additional jar appears to have been added for the second auction. A jar of very similar shape and decorated in the same manner is illustrated in Luísa Vinhais and Jorge Welsh (eds.), Noble Blue: The Enduring Appeal of Blue-Ground Chinese Porcelain, London, George Welsh Research and Publishing, 2023, cat. 9, pp. 108-9. (i) Ronald W. Fuchs II, ‘“A Great Show of Dark Blue Porcelain with Gilding”; Blue-Ground Chinese Porcelain and its Influences’, in Luísa Vinhais and Jorge Welsh (eds.), Noble Blue: The Enduring Appeal of Blue-Ground Chinese Porcelain, London, George Welsh Research and Publishing, 2023, pp. 17–37, at pp. 22–3.) (ii) Warwickshire County Record Office, L6/1116; William Thomas Beckford, A Catalogue of the Costly and Interesting Effects of Fonthill Abbey, (London, 1823), p.145; Auction catalogue, 1823, NT 3045887. (iii) Auction catalogue for the Rectory of Hampton Lucy (1874), Warwickshire County Record Office, L6/1613. (iv) See 'William Thomas Beckford', Legacies of British Slave-Ownership database, UCL, accessed 30/05/2024. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/22232; Boyd Alexander, (trans. and ed.), Life at Fonthill 1807-1822 With Interludes in Paris and London. From the Correspondence of William Beckford, (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1957); England’s Wealthiest Son: A Study of William Beckford, (London: Centaur Press Lt., 1962) (v) Amy Frost, ‘The Beckford Era’ in Caroline Dakers (ed.), Fonthill Recovered: A Cultural History, (London: UCL Press, 2018), pp. 59-93 (vi) Christie, Manson and Wood, Magnificent Effects at Fonthill Abbey, Wilts., (1822), p.24.
Provenance
On loan from Sir Edmund Fairfax-Lucy, 6th Bt (b. 1945).