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A Palatial and Important Pair of Famille Rose Porcelain and Cut-Crystal Twenty-one Light Gilt-Bronze Candelabra on Exceptional Regence Style Carved Giltwood Bases
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| REF No. B65700
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The Vases Chinese, Mounted in France with Gilt-Bronze Mounts, Circa 1880. The Pedestal Bases, French, Circa 1880.
Total Height: 306 cm / 121 inches
Width of Bases: 84 cm / 33 inches
Depth of Bases: 84 cm / 33 inches
Width of Candelabra: 91 cm / 36 inches
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A Palatial and Important Pair of Famille Rose Porcelain and Cut-Crystal Twenty-one Light Gilt-Bronze Candelabra on Exceptional Regence Style Carved Giltwood Bases.
Each candelabra has a large baluster form vase finely decorated overall with peonies, cloud bands and naturalistic forms centering on the elaborate figure of a Chinese Phoenix or Fenghuang. The vases are mounted with four tiers of scrolling gilt-bronze acanthus cast candlearms issuing twenty-one lights, and hung overall with cut-crystal drops and swags.
The candelabra stand on massive carved Regence Style giltwood pedestal bases each with canted tops above oval cartouches on a lattice ground. Each pedestal is carved to the front with three fleur-de-lys, and raised on outward scrolling supports terminating in paw feet.
Famille rose porcelain, known in Chinese as Yangcai (meaning foreign colours), was introduced in China during the Kangxi (1654-1722) reign of the Qing dynasty, possibly around 1720, to fulfil the export demand for brighter and more colourful decoration in Europe. Much of the decoration was undertaken in the studios of Canton (now Guangzhou) during the succeeding Yongzheng and Qianlong reigns.
These wares reached their zenith during the Yongzheng reign (1723-1735), replacing the famille verte of the Kangxi reign and becoming the dominant palette in overglaze decoration. Softer and gentler in appearance than famille verte and fired at a lower temperature, famille rose also became known in Chinese as 'soft colors' (ruan cai).
Characterised by soft shades of pink, famille rose allowed a greater range of colour and tone than was previously possible, enabling the depiction of more complex images, including flowers, figures and insects. It was made by drawing a sketch on the shaped clay, which is then covered with 'glassy white' (bo li bai) an opaque white enamel, and painted in detail with a mixture of pigment and oil, before firing. The rose enamel colour was achieved by the addition of gold oxide.
The palette remained popular in Europe throughout the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. Often porcelain was mounted in France with gilt-bronze mounts for both protection from knocks and as an indication of its status as an object of tremendous value. Vases of palatial size, such as the current examples, would have been extremely difficult to fire and extremely costly to produce. Imported and commissioned by European merchants such as the famous Parisian marchand-merciers and adorned with exceptional cut-crystal candelabra they would have been items of haute-luxe available only to the wealthiest connoisseurs.
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