A famille noir square-section vase

The vase is of tapering square section, each face is decorated with a magpie perched on a prunus branch above flowers and pierced rocks in varying shades of green enamel, all on a deep black ground. The neck is similarly decorated with prunus and bamboo amongst rocks. The base with an apocryphal Kangxi mark.

Catalogue notes: the depiction of magpies and prunus form the rebus, 'xishang meishao' which may be translated as a wish for 'happiness up to your eyebrows'.

Famille noir porcelains were a particular stylistic group that began to be produced in the Kangxi period and also gained popularity in the 19th century. A Kangxi famille noir vase with a similar form and decoration that may have acted as a prototype for the current lot was in the Richard Bennett Collection which was sold in 1911 and purchased by Edward Gorer for the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool, where it currently resides, accession no. LL6127.