PAIR OF ZITAN AND REVERSE-PAINTED GLASS HANGING LANTERNS QING DYNASTY, 18TH-19TH CENTURY

清 紫檀嵌玻璃内畫山水人物宮燈（一對）
each exquisitely made of square section with a waisted top and a waisted stand, carved overall in delicate pierce-work with auspicious motifs including lotus flowers, cloud-heads, ruyi and symmetrically arranged scrolls, the centre section with lattice borders framing four inset glass panels reverse-painted with immortals, Chinese boys and foreigners within landscape settings
(Qty: 2)
52cm high each
Provenance:
Yester House, East Lothian, Scotland; formerly in the collection of the Italian-American composer and librettist Gian Carlo Menotti (1911-2007), possibly acquired by the previous owner of Yester House, The Marquess of Tweeddale.
Menotti won the Pulitzer Prize twice, for The Consul (1950) and for The Saint of Bleecker Street (1955). He founded the noted Festival dei Due Mondi (Festival of the Two Worlds) in Spoleto in 1958 and its American counterpart, Spoleto Festival USA, in 1977. In 1986, he commenced a Melbourne Spoleto Festival in Australia. In 1974, Menotti, persuaded by the fine acoustics of the main room, purchased Yester House, in the village of Gifford, East Lothian, in Scotland.

Note:
The wood sample has been tested by the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens (ref. W156/1267B/2016PG) and the result match with Pterocarpus santalinus, referred to Zitan in Chinese.
Zitan framed lanterns made use of this precious timber left over from the making of larger pieces of furniture. Detailed with elaborate carving and delicately pierced lattice borders, they are comparable to the architectural latticework found on doors, windows and balustrades of traditional Chinese Palaces. Translucent glass panels are inset into their frames and it is known that in the middle of the Qing dynasty glass replaced paper or silk in windows, so it is highly probable that glass also began to be used in lanterns at that time.

In addition to the fine carvings, elaborate pierce-work and pleasant spacing of the design elements, this pair of Zitan lanterns have a metal receptacle plate with a central pierced hole into which lit candles can be inserted. The dark openwork carving would have been silhouetted against the candlelight in an attractive pattern.

Zitan and reverse-painted glass lanterns of similar form, bedecked with streamers and fringes, hang within the imperial wedding chamber in the Palace of Earthly Repose at the Forbidden City, see Wan-go Weng/Yang Boda, The Palace Museum: Peking, Treasures of The Forbidden City, 1982, pp. 56-57. Also refer to similar Zitan lanterns from the Collection of Robert H. Ellsworth (1929-2014), see Christie's New York, 17th March 2015, lot 52. Another comparable pair of lanterns can be found in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, see R.D. Jacobson & N. Grindley, Classical Chinese Furniture in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1999, p. 170.
Sold for £5,000
(Inclusive of Buyer's Premium)