An important pair of porcelain "Hampton Court" jars and covers


Arita ware, Kakiemon type, Edo period (1615-1868), 1670-1690The hexagonal jars each decorated in underglaze cobalt, and blue, green, yellow, red and black enamels over a transparent glaze with figures, birds and flowers arranged as double-panel friezes: one with a hooded figure holding a fan and a branch of prunus, next to a flowering prunus and stylized clouds; one frieze with a standing crane, pine, a camellia, and a flying crane and blossoming camellia bush; and one frieze with a bird and bamboo, and a flying bird above flowers and rocks, each design separated by borders of wisteria, the shoulders painted with three large phoenixes at the corners against a ground of leafy scrolling vines, the neck decorated with fretwork, the covers European decorated in Kakiemon style 12 3/4in (32.3cm) high, including covers
|The passion for Japanese porcelain in Europe was at its height at the end of the 17th century when William III and Mary acceded to the English throne in 1689. Mary's mania for Kakiemon porcelain soon set off a craze among European nobility, and "porcelain rooms" became the central gathering place of well-to-do ladies. These six-sided vases, known as Hampton Court Vases, named after a surviving pair in Mary's collection in Hampton Court Palace, became so popular that by the 18th century, copies were being produced in European porcelain factories. Mary assembled an impressive collection of porcelain between 1689 and her death in 1694. It is unclear from inventory records made at that time and after the dispersal of her collection which "six-sided coloured jarr" is which and precisely when the jars entered the Royal Collections. However, inventories of William and Mary's holdings made in 1697 and 1699 list approxiately 1000 porcelains and delftware. It may be that the Chinese and Japanese porcelains still at Hampton Court, which include hexagonal covered jars, are part of the 1694 legacy to Arnold Joost van Keppel, 1st Earl Albemarle. For other Hampton Court jars see John Ayers, et al., Porcelain for Palaces: The Fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750, exh. cat., London, Oriental Ceramic Society and British Museum, 1990, no. 151; Nishida Hiroko and Ohashi Koji (eds.), Kakiemon ten: Yoroppa ni kaikashita iro-e jiki (Kakiemon Exhibition: Polychrome Overglaze Enamel Decorated Ware That Flourished in Europe), Fukuoka, Asahi Shinbunsha, 1993, no. 36; and Yabe Yoshiaki, Kakiemon, vol. 20 of Nihon toji taikei, Tokyo, Heibonsha, 1989, no. 37.