Detail of a Vase with European Women and Children in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, August 2023

Title: Vase with European women and children

Period: Qing dynasty (1644–1911), Qianlong mark and period (1736–95)

Date: second half 18th century

Culture: China

Medium: Painted enamel on copper alloy, glass beads

Dimensions: H. 18 3/4 in. (47.6 cm); W. 9 1/2 in. (24.1 cm); D. 7 1/4 in. (18.4 cm)

Classification: Enamels

Credit Line: Bequest of Mary Clark Thompson, 1923

Accession Number: 24.80.316

Profusely ornate, this vase reflects Chinese interests in European imagery and pictorial techniques during the eighteenth century. Chinese artists used a new palette of opaque enamels to create shading that could replicate Western painting styles. The stippling on the sky and ground, as well as the horizontal lines on the surface of the body of water, may indicate that a European copperplate etching served as the pictorial source for the vignette.
Vase with European women and children, Painted enamel on copper alloy, glass beads, China

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/40790