ARMORIAL CHINESE EXPORT PORCELAIN
. 35
These jars are yet another example of pieces
with inaccurately drawn and incomplete
coats of arms, which makes it even more
difficult to ascertain the still unconfirmed
ownership attributed to them.
The decoration of these two jars is inspired
by sketches by Jean Bérain (1640-1711), who
was appointed as the
Dessinateur de la
Chambre et du Cabinet du Roi
[Designer of
the king’s chamber and office] in 1674, for a
series of twelve tapestries made in Beauvais,
during the early eighteenth century, known
as the ‘Grotesques des Dieux’, depicting a
god under a baldaquin amid architectural
elements with allegorical figures and exotic
birds below.
This pair of jars, with trumpet necks and the
arms of the Sampaio e Melo family, is the
only pair known in this shape. There are
three other jars with the same shaped body
and almost identical decoration, but with the
neck truncated slightly above the shoulder.
One of these is in a private Portuguese
collection and has been set on an
eighteenth-century gilded French cast
bronze mount. 3 (Fig. 82).
There are four lidded baluster-shaped jars,
differently shaped but with similar
decoration, including an extra border with
interlaced floral motifs near the base, in the
Hall of Ambassadors (Yellow Room) at the
Quirinale Palace in Rome. They are displayed
on gilded pedestals and bear the coat of
arms of Pope Clement XIV, Giovanni
Vincenzo Antonio Ganganelli (1769-1774).
The jars in the Roman palace, very probably
the only lidded ones known, are those that
the Portuguese ambassador to the papal
court, Manuel Pereira de Sampaio, was
‘forced’ to give to Pope Benedict XIV (1740-
1758), after an intriguing episode described
in a letter quoted above (see Fig. 81).
1 Heraldic description by MLCB.
2 Teixeira
et al.
, 1991, pp. 196 and 205, no. I 49; Pinto de
Matos
et al.
, 1998, pp. 212-13, no. 42.
3 Teixeira, ibid
.
Figure 82. Jars with the Sampaio e Melo coat of arms
Porcelain decorated with polychrome enamels
Qing dynasty, Kangxi period, ca. 1700-1720
Jorge Welsh, Lisbon and London