Pair of vases. China, Qing dynasty. Green Family, early 20th century. Hand painted enameled

Pair of vases. China, Qing dynasty. Green family, early 20th century.
Hand-painted enamelled porcelain with wooden stand.
Provenance: American private collection.
With original seal of the period on the base.
Measurements: 46 x 20 cm, 50 x 20 cm (with stand).
Pair of hand-polychromed Chinese vases on white with representations of figurative scenes decorating the bellies. These are country scenes enlivened by elegant ladies doing outdoor work in a landscape that follows the precepts of traditional Chinese painting. On the back of the vases are poems in traditional Chinese script and the signature at the top. The vases have organically inspired openwork handles. They belong to the so-called Green Family. The term Green Family is the Western name for a style of Chinese polychrome porcelain derived from wucai (literally, 'five colours'). Wucai was created in the Ming dynasty and has been widely used in China ever since. It is characterised by only some of the motifs being executed in cobalt-blue underglaze, while the rest of the decoration is applied already on the glaze. In addition, black glaze is added for the outlines, in the early days covered with a translucent green glaze to fix it. The Green Family style is a type of wucai called yingcai ("solid colours"), which is characterised by the predominance of copper oxide green. The name yingcai refers to the quality of the glazes, which are crystalline because they are mostly applied to the glaze.