This tankard is of an unusual shape which could have been inspired by European silver versions. The porcelain is of a style known as blanc de Chine after the white porcelains made at Dehua in the southern Chinese province of Fujian. Here, the decoration is of applied chrysanthemums. The tankard and its pair do not have their original handles, which perhaps broke in transit or were less attractive to European taste; the present gilt-bronze handles were added in France some time later. The tankards’ early provenance in the Royal Collection is not known, but they were placed alongside examples of Chinese blanc de Chine in the North Corridor (now the China Corridor) at Windsor Castle as part of a display of white Asian porcelain devised by Queen Mary in the early twentieth century.

Two Japanese white porcelain tankards with gilt-metal handles. Bell-shaped, straight-sided and swelling below, with low foot; the base glazed. The sides are decorated in relief with chrysanthemum sprays spreading from the handle, which is broken off and replaced by a simple S-shaped metal loop with leaf-moulded thumbpiece, fixed with metal pins at both points where the handle touches the tankard, attached to round-headed bosses inside.

Text adapted from Chinese and Japanese Works of Art in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen: Volume II and Japan: Courts and Cultures (2020)