Vase
Category
Ceramics
Date
1736 - 1795
Materials
Porcelain, cobalt, gold
Place of origin
Jingdezhen
Order this imageCollection
Saltram, Devon
NT 871087.2
Summary
One of a pair of vases, porcelain, baluster-shaped and of flattened hexagonal section, with trumpet-shaped necks and handles in the shape of stylised ancient-style dragons, made in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, China, Qianlong period (1736–95), covered with an underglaze blue ground decorated with landscapes painted in gold.
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. Vases NT 870842.1-2 and NT 870845.1-2 and NT 871005 at Saltram are of very similar shape, but with smaller bodies and longer necks. Accepted by HM Government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to the National Trust, 1957.
Provenance
Recorded as provenance unknown post 1957.