A pair of porcelain bottles with a pear-shaped body tapering into a tall, narrow neck. It is covered in a dark ‘powder blue’ glaze, with three reserved quatrefoil cartouches around the body - each outlined in iron-red. The cartouches are decorated with a distinct auspicious decoration in overglaze famille verte enamels, in greens, iron-red, aubergine, yellow and blue. The first panel has red, white and yellow chrysanthemums - one with a gilt day lily - growing from a grassy mound. The second has a large vase with peacock feathers and a branch of coral next to a censer on a stand, surrounded by various objects from the Hundred Treasures. The third panel is decorated with branches of red and gilt plum blossom with bamboo, issuing from a grassy ground. They are embellished with gilding on the flowers, as well as on the surface of the powder blue; which has a gilt meander and ruyi-head band around the shoulder, with a single meander repeated around the mouth. The bottom of the foot-ring is unglazed and the base of the bottles have a thin transparent glaze. They each have a stock label of the dealer Bernhard Stodel, Amsterdam.
The auspicious decoration on the reserved panels, would no doubt have been lost on the buyers in Europe. The plum blossom and the bamboo are both Chinese emblems of winter. As such they represent hardiness, steadfastness, perseverance, and resilience. The chrysanthemum and day lily are both flowers which thrive in autumn, creating a pairing representing enduring grace, familial love and steadfastness. The reserve with various objects, represents the Hundred Treasures (baibao) - also referred to as the Hundred Antiques (baigu). This motif does not always consist of exactly the same (or even a hundred!) objects, but a select combination of the entire range of possibilities - they all intended to express good wishes and good fortune. Here we can recognize items such as a conch shell, a ruyi scepter and a rabbit on a leaf.
Many similar vases are in museum collections. The Royal Collection Trust, UK holds a similar pair, but with more gilding on the body (RCIN 53119). The Taft Collection, Cincinnati has a pair (acc.nr. 1931.170), as does Musée Ariana, Geneva, from the Clare van Beusekom Collection (AR2007-186). The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam has a group of three (inv.nr. AK-NM6368 A-C). The British Museum, London has a pair with slight variations in the flower decoration (acc.nr. Franks.334 & 333).
