Vase
Category
Ceramics
Date
1736 - 1795
Materials
Porcelain, cobalt, gold.
Place of origin
Jingdezhen
Order this imageCollection
Saltram, Devon
NT 870993
Summary
Group of three vases, porcelain, of square section, widening towards the shoulder, narrowing towards the neck and the neck widening towards the square, slab-like rim, made in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, China, Qianlong period (1736–95), covered with an underglaze blue ground decorated with peonies, rocks and fences painted in gold, with matching square balustraded porcelain stands.
Full description
The use of underglaze cobalt blue to cover the entire surface is sometimes called Mazarin (or Mazareen) blue in English, after the French bleu Mazarin, possibly after Cardinal Mazarin (1602–61), prime minister of France, or his niece Hortense Mancini, Duchesse de Mazarin (1646–99) – but the reason for this is obscure. The cobalt could be applied through blowing, painting or dipping and was decorated in painted gold. For similar square-section blue-ground vases at Saltram, see NT 870789.1-2 and NT 870790.1-2.
Provenance
Accepted by HM Government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to the National Trust, 1957.