BF20
Further images
The compressed globular body with moulded raised petal panels, with a gently curving spout and a loop handle, decorated in shades of underglaze blue, each panel alternately painted with flowers and 'Long Elizas', a leafy branch around the short neck, the domed cover with a rounded finial, with petal reserves painted with flowers and dancing boys, the base glazed, with a single yu 'jade' character mark.
Literature
There is a group of three miniature blue and white teapots similarly decorated with ‘Long Elizas’ and with a ‘yu’ mark on the base in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum, New York, also dated to the Kangxi period (museum number 1975.1.1712, Robert Lehman Collection 1975).
In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, miniature versions of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain forms were highly prized in Europe. These miniatures would be placed in ornate ‘porcelain cabinets’, alongside larger ceramics. An example of such a display can be viewed at the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, where an elaborate 18th century dollhouse contains its own miniature ‘porcelain room’.
