Offered by Franck Baptiste Paris
Rare hexagonal Japanese porcelain box with a domed lid. The "Kakiemon" pattern depicts hills planted with Japanese cherry and maple trees, in underglaze blue enhanced with green and red enamels.
The box serves as a potpourri container, thanks to a substantial mercury-gilt bronze mount featuring an openwork gallery with an interlaced frieze and a base ending in lion's paw feet.
The mount is signed on the reverse in handwriting "L'escalier de Cristal" (The Crystal Staircase).
In very fine condition.
The bronze, Paris, second half of the 19th century.
A Japanese porcelain box, Arita kilns, circa 1700.
Dimensions:
Our opinion:
The important Japanese porcelain box we are presenting is a remarkable testament to the taste of European collectors for Far Eastern porcelains richly mounted in gilt bronze. The polychrome Kakiemon decoration, remarkably fresh, captivates with the elegance of its hillocks adorned with plum and maple trees, delicately enhanced with colored enamels.
The rarity of this piece stems as much from its unusual hexagonal shape and generous dimensions—large spice or tea boxes being much less common than smaller models—as from its remarkable state of preservation. The porcelain retains all the finesse of its enamels, while the sumptuous mercury-gilt bronze mount, crafted by L’Escalier de Cristal in the second half of the 19th century, lends the whole a particularly precious and decorative presence. The Crystal Staircase was renowned for assembling to order some of the rarest and most refined oriental porcelains, intended for an aristocratic clientele and great collectors sensitive to the exceptional quality of these objects from the Far East.
