A VICTORIAN BLACK, GILT AND POLYCHROME-DECORATED TOLE JARDINIERE

This jardinière or plant stand for a palm or exotic shrub combines antique with French and Chinese ornament in the eclectic fashion introduced by George IV at The Pavilion, Brighton. Its bowl, japanned as trompe l'oeil black and polychrome lacquer with an ormolu gallery, features a chinoiserie vignette of birds, butterflies and figures set amongst garden pavilions. The latter, comprising kiosks and a pagoda, recall the ‘Prospect of the Porcelane Tower at Nan King in China’ engraved in John Hamilton Moore’s New and Complete Collection of Voyages and Travels, 1778. A Chinese inscription adorns the top of its octagonal, reed-banded and hollow-sided pillar, which is festooned in flowering acanthus, while the triumphal palms and laurels which wreathe its Grecian triple-stepped plinth recall an altar to Apollo.