Three-Piece Cupboard Garniture
This garniture consists of a baluster-shaped vase with a domed cover surmounted by an onion-shaped finial and two baluster bottles with flaring rims and bulbous swellings below the rim. The decoration is of a particularly high standard. It consists of some mandarins with their servants and men on horseback and is derived from Chinese porcelain of the Transitional period.
It was highly fashionable to adorn cupboards with all sorts of Chinese porcelain jars, vases and bottles. When imports of Chinese porcelain virtually ceased in 1647, the Delft earthenware manufacturers soon spotted a gap in the market and started producing sets of vases and bottles with the highly coveted Chinese decoration. These sets almost always consisted of a central covered jar flanked by vases or bottles similar to those here. So began the garniture cult, which from 1670 to around 1800 was an integral part of the Dutch interior.
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