A RARE PAIR OF CHINESE CANTON PAINTED ENAMEL ‘DOLPHIN’ CANDLE HOLDERS

A RARE PAIR OF CHINESE CANTON PAINTED ENAMEL ‘DOLPHIN’ CANDLE HOLDERS
YONGZHENG/QIANLONG

Modelled after 17th century French glass prototypes by Bernard Perrot. In the form of dolphins or makara with their bodies curving upwards towards the tail-fins and brightly painted in the famille rose palette with blue scales, greenish-yellow heads and pink and white mouths, baring sharp teeth. Their large heads with bulging eyes are set above projecting pectoral fins, all worked in repoussé; the heads and tails support gourd-shaped vessels painted with flowerheads and foliate scrolls, and are applied with protruding leaves, all supporting wax-pans in the form of open lotus blossoms, and raised on circular, domed bases, 24 cm. (2)

Cf. J A Lloyd Hyde, Chinese Painted Enamels, the Chinese Institute in America, New York, no.55, p.39, for a closely related pair of candle holders with their bodies in the form of lions, rather than dolphins, which were sold by Christie’s London, 17th September 2008, lot 203.

These rare figures appear to be unrecorded, although the lotus blossom wax-pans are known from the lion candle holders referenced above and from an enamel candelabrum in Roseborg Castle in Copenhagen, which was commissioned in Canton by the supercargo Lintrup of the Danish Asiatic Company in 1740, and illustrated by M Beurdeley, Chinese Furniture, p.154, fig.207.

The shape of these models is directly copied from 17th century French glass tableware, and more specifically from glass dolphins made by Bernard Perrot (1619-1709), who worked in the Royal glass workshops of Orléans in the reign of Louis XIV. Perrot’s candlesticks can be found in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, accession number OA12170.

清雍正/乾隆 銅胎畫琺瑯摩羯形燭臺 一對