A RARE CANTON ENAMEL 'EUROPEAN SUBJECT' GARLIC-MOUTH BOTTLE VASE SEAL MARK AND PERIOD OF QIANLONG |

cast with a globular body tapering to a tall slender waisted neck with a garlic-head mouth and short mouth-rim, all supported on a short slightly splayed foot, the globular lower body decorated with two shaped cartouches, each enclosing a scene of five European figures, all against floral scrolls against a yellow ground above an upright lappet border, the neck enamelled with a pair of soaring dragons above a ‘honey-comb’ frieze, all between bands of angular scrollwork and keyfret encircling the rim and foot, the white base inscribed in blue with a six-character seal mark

The quality of the carefully enamelled scene suggests that the vase was created by experienced Chinese artists possibly trained in the Palace Workshop by the Jesuit missionaries who introduced the technique of enamelling on metal to the court. The scene derives from European mythology. The enamelled design is closely related to that on the cartouche of the famous Qianlong conjoined porcelain vase in the Eisei Bunko collection, illustrated in Sekai Toji Zenshu/Ceramic Art of the World, vol. 15: Ch'ing dynasty, Tokyo, 1983, pp. 102-3, nos 112-3. For other Canton enamel European-subject vases of this quality bearing the same unusual Qianlong seal mark, see those included in the exhibition Tributes from Guangdong to the Qing Court, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1987, cat. nos 44 and 46. Compare also a Canton enamel European-subject vase of begonia form, inscribed with the same Qianlong reign mark from the Qing court collection, and still in Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Metal-bodied Enamel Ware, Hong Kong, 2002, no. 215. 

A Canton enamel vase of the same size and garlic-neck form, sharing the same decoration on the neck but decorated on the body with a continuous scene of insect flowers and inscribed with a Qianlong yujian zhi bao mark, was included in the exhibition Chinese Painted Enamels, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1978, no. 45, and sold in our London rooms, 2nd December 1997, lot 55.