An exceptional pair of Chinese champlevé cloisonné enamel gilt metal gu-form vases 铜鎏金锤鍱珐琅花觚一对 18th/19th century ???????

Of waisted six-lobed section, the central section of globular form, with flared base and neck, fret border to both footring and mouth rim; the body finely repoussé-decorated with lotus scrolls in various color enamels against a gilt ground.

H: 13 1/2 in., Dia: 7 1/8 in.

NOTE:

For a closely related pair, possibly originally from the collection of Prince Kung, see Roger Keverne, Summer Exhibition 2010, pp. 28-29, where the motifs are inlaid with semiprecious stones instead of champlevé enamels. In that catalogue entry, a related gilt bronze and champlevé enamel vase in the collection of the Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum is cited. See also the pair of gilt bronze and champlevé enamel gu-form vases, dated to the Qianlong period, in Roger Keverne, Winter Exhibition 2012, no. 15, where it is noted such vases likely refer back to hardstone-inlaid examples like that cited above.

Norman Stanley Potter (1926–1970) was a collector with wide-ranging interests who developed an eye for classical arts and built a collection of Asian art, antiquities, and early European art. Born to Polish immigrants in New York City, Potter began his self-edification in the arts during his youth while exploring the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As a prominent mathematician and engineer, he participated in the Manhattan Project and later was a designer of complex defense systems. Together with his wife, the abstract artist Berne Potter, he was active in the art and antique worlds of New York and became friends with important gallerists and collectors, including Julius Carlebach and Melvin Gutman of Cole Galleries, Ltd., New York.

PROVENANCE:

Formerly in the Chinese Imperial collection, by repute, as described in an appraisal prepared by Melvin Gutman of Cole Galleries, New York, dated February 10, 1967, #46

W. E. Browne Decorating Company, Atlanta, Georgia

Property from the collection of Mr. Norman Potter, acquired from the above, February 28, 1966

Thence by descent