DIMENSIONS

Height: 14 ¼ inches

 

PROVENANCE

• Sir William Bennett, K.C.V.O., no. 53

• Dreicer-Gorer, London

• Acquired from the above, 1914

• Abigail Aldrich Rockefeller Bequest

• Sotheby's New York, October 12, 2005, lot 2

LITERATURE

Regina Krahl, Chinese Porcelain in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, vol. III, cat. no. 2866

 

CATALOGUE NOTES

A Chinese famille verte porcelain wine ewer and cover, of slightly flattened pear shape supported on a hexagonal foot, the two main sides centered with a circular panel, on one side with a courtesan keeping a rosary and a fly whisk away from a suitor, the reverse with a scene of a soldier embracing a maiden in a garden while being spied upon by a man standing by a window, each medallion enclosed within a peach shaped panel with a scrolling lotus border and further surrounded by flowering prunus branches and flanked by iron-red floral medallions, the whole set with a faceted spout and handle, the handle terminating a monster mask above a tiger mask in relief, the neck with shou characters and Sanskrit characters on a cross-hatched ground, mounted with a gilt-bronze hinge and a band around the edge of the cover, stand.