Vase Mounted as an Ewer, mid 18th century (vase); c. 1780/1785 (mounts)

West Building, Ground Floor - Gallery 12

Medium

porcelain with light green celadon glaze and underglaze decoration in white slip, with lip, handle, and foot of gilded bronze

Dimensions

overall (without mount): 37.8 × 22.2 cm (14 7/8 × 8 3/4 in.)
overall (with mount): 61.2 × 24.6 cm (24 1/8 × 9 11/16 in.)

Credit Line

Widener Collection

Accession Number

1942.9.441

Artists / Makers

Chinese Qing Dynasty (artist)

Image Use

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Provenance

Marquis de Montault, Château de la Terte, Trescuel, L'Aigle, Normandy. Charles J. Wertheimer [1842-1911], London. (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York); sold 1912 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.

Associated Names

Duveen Brothers, Inc.
Montault, Marquis de
Wertheimer, Charles J.
Widener, Joseph E.
Widener, Peter Arrell Brown

Exhibition History

1986: Mounted Chinese Porcelain, traveling exh. organized by the International Exhibitions Foundation, shown at The Frick Collection, New York; The Nelso-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; Center for the Fine Arts, Miami, 1986-1987, no. 39.

Technical Summary

The glaze line at the base is flush with the foot and is rough and uneven. There is oxidation of the porcelain body in a thin brown line at the glaze termination. A hole has been cut at the center of the glazed base at some time after its manufacture, and thick red adhesive has been applied around the hole and unevenly around the base just inside the foot. Presumably, the hole and the adhesive were for the attachment of the mount. There is corresponding adhesive on the bronze mount. There are superficial scratches at the mouth, top of the neck, and horizontally down one side of the body, where the mount makes contact.

Bibliography

1942: Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 19.

1980: Lunsingh Scheurleer 1980, 97, fig. 344.

1986: Mounted Chinese Porcelain. Exh. cat. The Frick Collection, New York; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; Center for the Fine Arts, Miami. Organized by International Exhibitions Foundation, Washington, D.C., 1986: no. 39.

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: 264-265, color repro.