Provenance: Sir Ernest Joseph Cassel (1852-1921)
Lady Delamere.

Sir Ernest Joseph Cassel GCB GCMG GCVO PC (1852-1921), a German Jew, who arrived penniless in Liverpool, England, in 1869, quickly rose within the banking industry to become one of the wealthiest men in England of his day. Cassel became a close friend of King Edward VII, prime minister Herbert Asquith and Winston Churchill. He was a generous philanthropist whose benefactions included large sums of money for education, hospitals and the British Red Cross. He also built and endowed an Anglo-German Institute in 1911 in memory of King Edward VII.

Cassel formed an extensive art collection and also had many beautiful houses. After the early death of his wife Annette, his widowed sister helped him bring up his daughter. His only child, Maude Cassel (1879-1911) also died young. He doted on the two granddaughters she left him, especially the eldest, Edwina, who went on to marry Lord Mountbatten. His only child having predeceased him, the art collection was inherited by Cassel's two granddaughters: Lady Delamere and her sister Edwina Mountbatten. The following lots (nos. 3594-3601) were inherited by Lady Delamere and bequeathed to her sons.

Exhibited: The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England, 1961-1998.

Note: White jade moonflasks of this impressive size are unsurprisingly very rare. Despite the increased supply of good quality material available during the Qianlong period that came with the conquest of Xinjiang, boulders large enough to carve a vase of this size and even colour must have continued to be difficult to find and are likely to have been reserved for Imperial use since the quality of carving found on these vases is invariably very high. A white jade moonflask carved with full-face dragons from the collection of Sir John Buchanan Jardine was exhibited at the 1935 International Exhibition of Arts, London and later sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 3 December 2008, lot 2606. The keyfret borders and rounded sides compare very closely to those on the present example. Another white jade vase and cover in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London illustrated by M. Wilson, Chinese Jades, London, 2004, p. 51, no. 50, displays a different naturalistic style of decoration with a scene of quails but the elephant head handles and domed cover are very similar to those found on the present vase. The formalised lotus scroll design on this vase is more commonly found on spinach jade examples such as the vase sold at Christie's New York, 22 March 2007, lot 107. Compare also a spinach green jade vase of very similar form and size carved with flowerheads, ruyi and the eight Buddhist emblems, in the Lady Lever Art Gallery Collection, illustrated by S. C. Nott, Chinese Jade, London, 1936, pl. CX. Two large white jade vases from the Alan and Simone Hartman Collection of jades were sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 26 November 2006, lots 1392 and 1406.