Imperial Dragonfest

Height: 7.5 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.5/1.5 cm
Stopper: porcelain, painted to imitate a coral cabochon in a gilt-bronze collar
Jingdezhen, probably Imperial kilns, 1840-1890

Provenance:
Dennis G. Crow, Los Angeles, California, 1995.
Ruth and Carl Barron Collection, Belmont, Massachusetts,
no. 1756.
Christie’s, New York, 13 September 2017, lot 263

 

Iron-red, gold, green, white and black enamels on colourless glaze on porcelain; with a slightly convex lip and foot and convex footrim; painted with a continuous scene of six dragons, one in the sky surrounded by formalized clouds chasing a flaming pearl, the othe five above formalized waves, one clutching a pearl with another pearl narby, the interior glazed.

Alexander Whittaker