Chinese famille  noire biscuit porcelain hexagonal openwork teapot and cover, Early Kangxi, circa 1680; 5 7/8 inches, 15 cm total height, 6 1/8 inches, 15.5 cm handle to spout. Price on request. © Marchant.

the reticulated body modelled with six panels of the ‘Three Friends of Winter’, sanyou, pine, prunus and bamboo above a moulded band of lotus petals beneath a flower head band in iron-red and gilt on a continuous scrolling green branch at the shoulder, with ruyi-head, hexagonal diaper and cash on the faceted neck, all on a rich black enamel ground between a carp-form handle and dragon-mouth hexagonal spout, the cover reticulated with a branch of flowering prunus, with prunus flower head finial.

Provenance: Formerly in the Gaze Cooper Collection.
Walter Thomas Gaze Cooper (1895-1981) was well-known for his two great passions: music and collecting Chinese, Greek and Egyptian art. The music of Rachmaninov inspired him to learn the piano and prompted his first efforts at composition at the age of fifteen. He went to the Royal Academy of Music and in 1933 founded the Midland Conservatory of Music Orchestra, which in 1942 became the Nottingham Symphony Orchestra. As a pianist, he was known to have a brilliant technique, and as a teacher of unflagging energy, he often taught for ten to twelve hours a day. Amongst his prolific work, he wrote nine symphonies.
In 1951, his collection of oriental antiques was reputed to be one of the most valuable in the United Kingdom and was known for having artefacts that were replicated in the British Museum.

Note: A similar teapot in the British Museum was donated by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks, collection no. 879; another, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, was gifted by Edwin C. Vogel in 1963, collection no. 63.213.18a, b; a further example, is illustrated by Anthony du Boulay in The Taft Museum, Cincinnati, Its History and Collections, no. 1931.5, p. 665, where the author notes, “A similar teapot, formerly at Burghley House (Stamford, Eng.), was included in the Devonshire Schedule, an inventory of the contents of the house, made in 1688-90”.

A further example, with different flower heads on the shoulder, formerly in the Willoughby d’Ernsby Collection, is illustrated by R. L. Hobson in Catalogue of the Leonard Gow Collection of Chinese Porcelain, 1931, no. 359, pl. LIV; a further example with a different border on the shoulder from the C. L. Paget Collection is illustrated by Soame Jenyns in Later Chinese Porcelain, pl. XXVI, where the author notes, “In these pieces, the black pigment was covered with a thin transparent green glaze, which produce an iridescent sheen. Because these pieces were costly to produce, as repeated firings often destroyed them in the kiln, they have commanded prices in the West which no other Chinese porcelain has been able to secure.” 

MARCHANT. Exhibition 'Kangxi Famille Verte'