Potpourri bowl with cover

The fluted pumpkin-shaped jar, with a flattened lid, of gray-green celadon porcelain of the late Ming or early Qing period (seventeenth century), is richly mounted as a pot-pourri bowl with gilt bronze. A band of bronze, gilded, scrolled, pierced, and chased with foliate and shell forms, etc., separates the body from the cover. The center of the lid has been cut out, raised, and mounted with a deep circular border of gilt bronze chased with foliate scrolls and shell forms. This provides a podium for a group of shells and coral branches of gilt bronze forming a knop or handle to the cover. At each side of the body is a handle in the form of interlacing acanthus leaves and sprays of bulrushes of gilt bronze. The whole rests on a circular base of ribbed gilt bronze supported on four feet in the form of asymmetrical acanthus scrolls.