Pair of pheasants

A pair of Chinese porcelain pheasants painted in famille rose enamels with French gilt-bronze mounts. The ‘matched pair’ of birds, facing towards each other, each perched on a pierced hollow rock, the body resting against a pinnacle, one leg raised with claw clenched, the front leg set on a ledge. The breast is in bright iron-red and the neck feathers are brown and cream; the pale red head is topped by a turquoise crest, the pierced beak is gilt and the eyes are gilt with black pupils. The folded wing feathers are multi-coloured, with turquoise for the body feathers beneath, and various colours in the tapering tail. The rock is splashed with purple, rose-crimson and brown, with dashes of blue and green. The figures are set on rectangular, gilt-bronze bases with concave corners, the join between porcelain and gilt-bronze masked by a close-fitting metal cord, supported at the corners on spirally turned ball feet.

Following the popularity of the blanc de Chine figures imported into Europe by the end of the seventeenth century, a great variety of figures were produced to attract this market, many of them based on Western models.

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