A Chinese porcelain vase with French gilt-bronze mounts. With slender ovoid body and waisted neck. Painted on one side are three white rams among rocks, with a pine tree and bamboo, and on the reverse, five bats, the whole symbolising spring, good fortune and longevity. The circular top rim is encased in an outscrolled fluted and acanthus-leaf gilt-bronze band, above a leafy branch-entwined separate moulding, joined to which are a pair of squared side handles festooned with acanthus, and with slightly recessed reeded inner panels terminating in masks emerging from acanthus. The base is set in a cup with flutes divided by acanthus husks, on a socle with a guilloche collar and a spreading acanthus pedestal foot on a circular laurel wreath on a square base. The mouth mount has a retaining moulding which suggests that the vase was once fitted with a cover, now missing.

A group of rare pieces are these pale blue glazes, among which are a number painted with designs in blue and red, which in France were often dressed in gilt-bronze mounts of the highest quality.

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