A RARE IMPERIAL-TYPE RED-GROUND CLOISONNE ENAMEL VESSEL ON GILT REPOUSSE KNEELING-BOY FEET Qianl...

A RARE IMPERIAL-TYPE RED-GROUND CLOISONNE ENAMEL VESSEL ON GILT REPOUSSE KNEELING-BOY FEET
Qianlong/Jiaqing
The circular tapering jardiniere decorated with two coral-ground and gilt horizontal bands divided by raised bands of 'twisted-rope' wires, both bands with vertical panels each containing three simple flower heads, variously colored blue, yellow, and white, all on a ground of scrolling tendrils, the deep container supported by three gilt-metal kneelng male servants voluminously dressed in robes and encircled by billowing ribbons.
7 1/2 in (19cm) high
Footnotes:
乾隆時期 十八世紀中/後期 珍稀紅地嵌絲琺瑯鎏金三童子足花器

Published
Cohen & Cohen, Tyger Tyger!, Antwerp, 2016, pp. 72-73, no. 32

出版：
倫敦Cohen & Cohen古董行，《Tyger Tyger!》，安特衛普，2016年，頁72-73，圖版編號32

The bucket shape echoes a rustic wooden pail with vertical slats bound by rope and is clearly designed as an amusing variant in expensive cloisonne enamel of this standard artisan vessel. Such conceits were very popular with the early Qing emperors, who took a particular pleasure in instructing their Palace and external craftsmen to recreate familiar objects in entirely different materials: archaic bronzes in jade, eel-trap nets in porcelain, bronze incense burners in lapis lazuli, or rhinoceros horn carvings in silver, Imperial textile pouches in opaque yellow glass, etc. Jardinières of this shape have been published as still existing in the Qing Court Collections. Indeed, some still survive with additional embellishments at the top confirming that they were intended to be displayed in the Forbidden City and other Imperial palaces as simulated pails of flowers, because some were deliberately fitted with simulated flower arrangements comprising miniature flowering trees created with curling wire branches suspending green hardstone leaves and set with carnelian, crystal and other semi-precious hardstones carved as exotic flower heads.

References: National Palace Museum, Beijing, for a similar example illustrated in Compendium of Collections in the Palace Museum: Enamels 4, Cloisonné in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Beijing, 2011, plate 6; and a similar example published in Colorful, Elegant, and Exquisite: A Special Exhibition of Imperial Enamel Ware from Mr. Robert Chang's Collection, Suzhou, 2009, pp. 84-85.