Vintage Cobalt Blue, White & Gilt Porcelain Lidded Ginger Jar, Mid/Late 20th Century

Description

A striking vintage porcelain lidded ginger jar dating from the middle to latter part of the 20th century.

The jar has an unusual faceted baluster-shaped body decorated in a wonderfully rich cobalt blue. Across the surface are repeating diamond-shaped lattice reserves painted in white and soft powder blue, each outlined with delicate hand-applied gilding.

Further cobalt and gilt bands frame the top and base, while the original matching domed lid repeats the geometric decoration and is finished with a pointed cobalt-blue finial.

The combination of deep blue, white and gold gives the piece a particularly smart decorative quality, drawing on traditional East Asian porcelain while having the graphic confidence associated with the Chinoiserie and Hollywood Regency interiors of the 1960s and 1970s.

The underside is predominantly glazed and carries a small hand-painted blue number 21, together with the remains of an old paper label. There is no surviving maker’s or country-of-origin mark, so I would not attribute the piece to a particular factory. Comparable Japanese and Chinese export porcelains were made in this style during the second half of the 20th century.

It is a particularly useful decorative scale: substantial enough to work alone on a mantelpiece or console, but small enough to incorporate into a larger collection of blue-and-white porcelain.