Pair of Chinese vases and covers with French mounts. With rounded, rising sides, and cut from the lower part of larger vases. The all-over carved decoration is of peony scrolls under a light celadon glaze. The covers, resembling inverted saucer dishes, were possibly cut from the shoulders of the vases. Each cover with a berried finial (perhaps nineteenth-century), above a domed cover with gadroons and acanthus husks on a punched ground, with a waisted section of cartouches in repoussé gilt bronze and deep-beaded rim; the top of the vase with guilloche pattern on a punched ground; the side handles formed from mermaids, with interlaced bifurcated imbricated tails; the mounts of the cover, rim and handles, first quarter eighteenth century. On a later, leaf-cast foot, inset on a pierced rockwork base.

The monochrome grey-green celadon glaze which had been a staple of the Longquan kilns for centuries during the Ming period and earlier was taken up by the porcelain factories of Jingdezhen in the seventeenth century; and from the reign of Kangxi (1662–1722) onwards, wares of distinction were made in this style, frequently with reticulated incised decoration. They were among those which the marchand-merciers of Paris most often sought out for mounting in gilt bronze, and many fine examples of their art, together with that of English bronze makers, displayed to effect at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, were brought together by George IV.

Text adapted from Chinese and Japanese Works of Art in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen: Volume II.