Auction 158 Antiques & Works of Art,
Silver & Jewellery

377

A rare pair of Chinese export porcelain gallant figures


Estimate

3.000 - 5.000


Session 2

26 March 2026



Description

Chinese export porcelain
Modelled in the European taste, possibly inspired by originals from the Chelsea Factory, and decorated with famille rose enamels
The male figure depicted standing, wearing a black tricorn hat, coat and waistcoat with floral pattern; the female figure depicted in a wide panniered dress decorated with floral panels, bodice adorned with braids and bows, feathered headdress and holding a fan
Qianlong period (1736–1795)

Height: 18,5 cm


Additional Information

These figures are a rare example of Chinese export porcelain sculpture modelled after European prototypes, a typology of which very few examples are known. The representation of gallant figures in eighteenth-century dress, here modelled in the round, finds a parallel in the painted decoration of pieces from the same period, such as the polychrome dish with a gallant scene reproduced in M. Beurdeley, Porcelaine de la Compagnie des Indes, Paris, pp. 140–141. For a comparable sculptural group in Famille Rose porcelain, modelled after a Meissen original representing the so-called Tyrolean Dancers, cf. Cohen & Cohen: 50 Years of Chinese Export Porcelain, Bonhams, New York, 24 January 2023, lot 133 (est. US$20,000–30,000).



Closed Auction