A pair of eggshell-thin soft-contoured mallet vases

One of a pair of small eggshell-thin soft-contoured mallet vases, this piece has a flaring mouth, a waisted neck, a pear-shaped tapering body, and a footring. The body of both vases is decorated with qianjiang cai (pale umber decoration) landscape scenes containing Chinese roses, chrysanthemums, flying and playing birds, rocks, a bridge, grassland, etc on a white background. Qianjiangcai refers to an elegant color scheme including sepia and pale umber pigments painted on white porcelain vessels. Techniques of traditional Chinese ink painting are used in the decoration to achieve a painterly quality. This scheme became fashionable during the Jiaqing and Daoguang reigns of the Qing dynasty, with contributions made by porcelain artists such as Wang Tingzuo, Jin Pinqing and Cheng Men. Two lines of a poem, which read "qing biao shang jing lü, niao yu yi sheng hong" (When birds sing, all the green will turn red), are inscribed on one side of the body. The top of the neck is adorned with painted black hui wen (key fret patterns) and stylized cloud collars. On the bottom of the body is another band of painted black hui wen together with a band of solid black dots. Both vases bear an inscribed seal mark of "qianlong nian zhi" (Made during the Qianlong reign of the Great Qing) in underglaze blue along with "CHINA" stamped in black on the base of the footring. As requested by the United States Law (U.S. Stamp Act of 1892), any exported wares to the United States from 1891 were required to be marked with "CHINA". Since the decorative technique of qianjiangcai actually appeared later than the Qianlong reign as mentioned above, it is evident that these two soft-contoured mallet vases are objects specially designed for foreign trade, and were approximately made during the late 19th century to early 20th century