3-021-084 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Chinese vase, purchased by the King of the Belgians, 1869. One of three vases '...sent to London from Pekin by Lady Alcock, the wife of Sir Rutherford Alcock, the British Ambassador at the Imperial Court of China...they have now become the property of the King of the Belgians. The beauty of their form and design will be evident from our Illustration. The workmanship is exquisitely beautiful, and the enamelling is of the description to which the French apply the term "cloisonné''...Such works are now only to be obtained from the palaces of Imperial Princes and great mandarins, whose descendants want money and care little for art. These vases evidently belong to the best period. They are undoubtedly the finest works which have yet found their way to Europe. Their size is also extraordinary, measuring each 3 ft. in height, independent of their bases; and the colour of the enamel is very uncommon and beautiful. When shown to Lady Alcock, the wife of our Ambassador at Pekin, her Ladyship, possessing very great teste for art, at once appreciated their high merits, and secured them, with the laudable desire of sending them to Europe as specimens of Chinese art'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.