Bottle Vase, late 17th/early 18th century

Provenance

Richard Bennett, Northampton, England; sold 1911 to (Gorer, London); (Dreicer & Co., New York, agents of Gorer); sold 1914 to Peter A. B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; inheritance from Estate of Peter A. B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; gift 1942 to NGA.

Technical Summary

The white porcelain body is covered with a pale gray crackled high-fire glaze, then coated on the outside of the vessel with a brilliant emerald green enamel through which shows the darkened crackle of the base glaze. This gray layer is visible at the lip, on the inside, and at the base. The unglazed wedge-shaped foot is dressed with a thin, dark slip, perhaps to simulate the "iron foot" of Song-period Guan ware. The base layer stops neatly at the foot, but the green glaze continues onto the outside of the foot, forming a shiny thin coating over the dull slip.

Bibliography

1911

Gorer 1911, 70, no. 346.

1942

Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 21.

1998

Bower, Virginia, Josephine Hadley Knapp, Stephen Little, and Robert Wilson Torchia. Decorative Arts, Part II: Far Eastern Ceramics and Paintings; Persian and Indian Rugs and Carpets. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1998: 108-110, color repro.

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