Slender, ovoid vases of Chinese porcelain with rare decoration with French gilt bronze mounts, inverted, with the small neck and mouth removed, moulded in archaic bronze style, with three bands of bold key-fret on a lozenge-diaper ground, lotus-petal panels on the sides, tapering to the former foot and petal border on the rounded shoulder. The inverted vase with top rim covered with a projecting spout, moulded beneath with a Bacchante mask decked with foliage, with beaded swags hanging down the sides. The handle in the form of a standing hound, with snout and paws perched over a boat-shaped cup, the hound standing on a shell supported by a truss; running down the side is a ribbon-tied crossed berried laurel swag, surmounted by a table and a hexagonal obelisk. The vase is held in an acanthus-leaf cup, supported on a spirally fluted stem, with ribbed torus moulding on a square plinth with beaded edge, reeded recessed side panels and short bracket feet.

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 reticent 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.