Lid
Category
Ceramics
Date
1736 - 1795
Materials
Porcelain, enamel.
Place of origin
Jingdezhen
Order this imageCollection
Saltram, Devon
NT 870820.2
Summary
Lid for a tea canister, porcelain, cylindrical with a flat top, made in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, China, Qianlong period (1736–95), decorated in the famille rose (‘pink family’) palette in pink, green, brown, yellow and black enamels with flower sprays on the sides and a single rosette on the top.
Full description
The square shape is probably derived from European metal tea canisters. The use of several different registers of decoration – realistic, stylised, applied – on the same object is often encountered in 18th-century Chinese decorative art, suggesting playfulness and sophistication. Famille rose porcelain was particularly popular in Europe during the middle and the second half of the 18th century, as it chimed with the taste for brighter and more saturated colours in interiors and fashion during this period (North 2018).
Provenance
At Saltram by 1957 and given to NT by Montagu Brownlow Parker (1878-1962), 5th Earl of Morley as part of the Endowment
References
North 2018: Susan North, 18th-Century Fashion in Detail, London, 2018., p.14