A large, exhibition-quality stoneware cylinder vase on a stand, with silver and gold leaf, and polychrome relief-decorated Japanese motifs over a deep purple-red ground. Unusually, the vase is also decorated on the interior, a feature typically reserved for exhibition rather than function pieces.

Almost certainly by Charles Toft Senior for Minton, England, circa 1870–80.

Why We Like It

This vase is an extremely rare and possibly unique example of this Minton model, hand-decorated with kingfishers, barn swallows, a dragonfly, a butterfly, a crane fly, and blossoms, exquisitely rendered in striking colours and clearly informed by the Japanese symbolism and decorative tradition.

Attribution

A very similar Japanese-inspired model, listed as shape no. 1697 in the Mintons archives, is attributed to Christopher Dresser, who travelled to Japan in 1876–7 as an emissary of the British Government and later pioneered the development of the Anglo-Japanese style in the decorative arts. Comparable examples include a pair exhibited at the Paris Universelle Exposition, 1878 (see J. Joans, Mintons: The First Two Hundred Years of Design & Production, Shrewsbury, 1993, pp. 103 and 105), formerly in the Thomas Goode Collection. A further pair was sold at Christie’s New York, 20 October 2009, lot 234 ($32,500). Another pair, signed by C. Toft, was sold at Christie’s New York, 18 October 2012, lot 560 ($20,000).

Dimensions

Height: 39cm / 15.25"

Diameter: 21.5cm / 8.5"