€ 14,500

Asian Art

period

Kangxi period (1662-1722)

materials

Porcelain, famille verte enamels

technique

Famille verte enamels, underglaze blue

dimensions

Height: 22 cm | Diameter: 12 cm

culture

Chinese

provenance

Nieuwenhuys Collection, 1991 (nr.112); Private Collection, Belgium 2025

A famille verte bottle vase, with a globular body and straight slender neck. The body is decorated with rockwork, flowers and butterflies, in bright green, red, yellow and blue enamels - some flowers highlighted with gold. The neck has three single red blossoms; around both the mouth and shoulder is a matching band of red peony flowerheads on a green speckled ground. The base bears a letter in underglaze-blue, often identified as the Latin capital G or the Persian letter ye (ی). Chinese porcelain with this intriguing letter-mark is relatively rare. As it is unlike other marks on porcelain, it is puzzling and as yet not fully explained. It occurs on objects with different shapes; mainly decorated in famille verte enamels, but occasionally in underglaze blue. For many years it was thought to represent the European letter G, but when rotated 90 degrees, it also reads as the Persian letter ye (ی). Either way, this still does not explain its use or meaning. One theory is that it is a mark or initial, applied to specific porcelain orders for a Chinese, Dutch or Persian merchant. Similarly decorated vases - with the same letter mark - are in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (inv.nrs. OC.14A-1938 & OC.14B-1938) and the Royal Porcelain Collection, Dresden (inv.nr. PO 4638). Dresden also has a bowl with the same mark (inv.nr. PO 6881). The Rijksmuseum has a pair of famille verte bottles as well as an underglaze blue vase - of a similar size and shape - also with the letter G. (inv.nr. AK-RKB 16303 & AK-RBK 16340). The Groninger Museum has a famille verte teapot with this mark (inv.nr. 1899-42).