{"product_id":"baluster-vase-in-porcelain-with-flowing-lustre-ground-and-hand-painted-peonies-in-raised-gold-chinese-export-c-1980-2010","title":"Baluster Vase in Porcelain with Flowing Lustre Ground and Hand-Painted Peonies in Raised Gold, Chinese Export, c. 1980–2010","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA baluster vase in white porcelain, the body swelling low and drawing in to a waisted neck that opens again into a flared trumpet mouth. It is a classical Chinese profile and it has been in continuous use for centuries.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe ground is the unusual part. Rather than a single colour, the glaze runs and pools across the surface in broad soft fields — apricot, buttercup yellow, sage green, and a pale grey-lavender — bleeding into one another with no hard edges, the way watercolour behaves on wet paper. Across the green and grey passages the surface carries a genuine \u003cstrong\u003eiridescence\u003c\/strong\u003e, a lustre that throws pink, gold and blue depending on where you stand.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eLaid over that are the peonies: full open blooms in scarlet, cobalt blue and cream, with sprays of long leaves in black and deep green. Each bloom is painted freehand, the colour flooded into the petal shapes and shaded from the edge inward.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eAnd every petal and every leaf is then outlined in \u003cstrong\u003eraised gold\u003c\/strong\u003e. The gilding is not painted flat but \u003cem\u003etrailed\u003c\/em\u003e — piped in a standing bead that you can feel with a fingertip, running the whole contour of each flower and vein. It is the detail that lifts the decoration off the surface and makes it read from across a room.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe interior and the mouth are glazed bright white. The base is white, with an impressed mark and a small hand-painted number in cobalt.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe decoration draws on a deep tradition. The peony is the Chinese flower of wealth, honour and spring — the \u003cem\u003emudan\u003c\/em\u003e, often called the king of flowers — and it has been the most-painted subject in Chinese decorative porcelain for a thousand years. Raised gold outlining and flowing multi-colour glaze grounds are both long-established techniques in the Chinese and Japanese decorative repertoire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe object itself, however, is not old, and we would rather establish that plainly than let a traditional subject imply a date it cannot support.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe reds are the clearest evidence.\u003c\/strong\u003e That flat, opaque, brilliant scarlet is a modern selenium-cadmium ceramic enamel. It is a twentieth-century colourant and it does not appear on earlier work: the traditional Chinese iron reds run browner and more transparent, and copper reds are deeper, more variable, and prone to pooling. The cobalt-turquoise blue in the second bloom belongs to the same modern palette.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe gilding is bright and unworn\u003c\/strong\u003e, standing proud across every contour with no rubbing at the high points and no loss where the vase would have been handled. Raised gold is the most vulnerable element on any piece of decorated porcelain and it is the first thing to go.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAnd the base is clean.\u003c\/strong\u003e The footring shows only light kiln grit and a trace of glaze staining, with none of the accumulated wear, scratching, or grime that a century of standing on shelves and being moved produces.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eTaken together, this is \u003cstrong\u003eChinese decorative export porcelain of roughly the last few decades\u003c\/strong\u003e, given here as c. 1980–2010. It is offered as exactly that, and not as an antique.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe marks are workshop marks rather than reign marks. There is an \u003cstrong\u003eimpressed character to the base\u003c\/strong\u003e, not fully legible, and a small \u003cstrong\u003ehand-painted cobalt numeral\u003c\/strong\u003e alongside it — the sort of tally a decorating shop uses to track which painter did which piece. Neither identifies a maker, and the vase is \u003cstrong\u003enot attributed\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eNone of which is a mark against it. The glaze work is genuinely accomplished, the peonies are painted by hand rather than transferred, and the raised gilding is real work applied one bead at a time. It is a well-made decorative vase, and that is a fair thing to be.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003ctable border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"8\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"width:100%; border-collapse:collapse;\"\u003e\n    \u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eField\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eDetail\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\u003c\/thead\u003e\n    \u003ctbody\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eObject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eBaluster vase\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOrigin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eChinese decorative export porcelain. Unattributed — no maker's name or factory mark is present.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eForm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eSwelling baluster body on a low foot ring, waisted neck, flared trumpet mouth; glazed white to the interior\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eDecoration\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eFlowing polychrome lustre ground in apricot, yellow, sage and grey-lavender, overpainted freehand with peonies in scarlet, cobalt and cream with black and green foliage, every contour outlined in raised trailed gold\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eWhite porcelain with lustre and enamel glazes and raised gilding\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eAn impressed character to the base, not fully legible, with a small hand-painted cobalt numeral alongside. Workshop marks rather than reign marks.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003ec. 1980–2010. Dated on the modern selenium red enamel, the unworn raised gilding, and the clean foot. \u003cstrong\u003eOffered as a decorative vase, not as an antique.\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eExcellent. The vase is sound with no chips, cracks, hairlines, or restoration, and it stands flat and true. The glaze is intact throughout and the lustre is bright and even. The painted peonies are complete and unfaded, and the raised gold outlining is present the whole way round with no rubbing or loss. The interior is clean and unstained. Light kiln grit and minor glaze staining to the unglazed foot ring, as made. Condition Guaranteed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eAvailability\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOne of a Kind — 1 Available\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n  \u003c\/table\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eColour is the argument here, and it is a genuinely unusual one. Most decorative porcelain commits to a palette — blue and white, famille rose, celadon. This runs apricot into yellow into sage into lavender across a single surface and then puts a scarlet peony on top of it, and the whole thing somehow holds together. It reads as a piece of colour before it reads as a vase.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe iridescence is the part photographs cannot carry. Move around it, or move a lamp, and the green and grey passages shift through pink and gold. That is a property of the glaze itself, not of the light, and it makes the vase change through the day in a way flat glaze never does.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eAt this scale it works on a mantel, a console, a bookshelf, a dining table, or a sideboard, and it is tall enough to take real branches — forsythia, quince, eucalyptus, pussy willow — rather than only cut stems. Standing empty it holds a shelf on its own.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA note on care. \u003cstrong\u003eHand wash only, and never in a dishwasher.\u003c\/strong\u003e Both the lustre and the raised gilding are surface-applied over the glaze, and dishwasher heat and detergent will dull the iridescence and strip the gold, permanently, in a single cycle. \u003cstrong\u003eNever microwave it\u003c\/strong\u003e — the gilding is metal and will arc. Wash in lukewarm water with a mild soap, supporting the body rather than gripping the mouth, and dry with a soft cloth. Use nothing abrasive on it: no scouring pad, no cream cleaner, no metal polish. When you handle it, avoid dragging fingers along the raised gold, which is the highest and most exposed element on the piece. If you use it with water and flowers, empty and dry it between uses rather than letting water stand, and keep it out of prolonged direct sun.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48031114395753,"sku":"VE-0678","price":88.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/30C0665C-9359-4D61-99FF-FB976E2524F2.jpg?v=1789027565","url":"https:\/\/viridianeclection.com\/products\/baluster-vase-in-porcelain-with-flowing-lustre-ground-and-hand-painted-peonies-in-raised-gold-chinese-export-c-1980-2010","provider":"Viridian Eclection","version":"1.0","type":"link"}