Two Chinese porcelain flasks painted in underglaze blue with silver mounts. Each with flattened, pear-shaped body, tall, tapering, squared neck and rectangular, unglazed base with a mould line. The back is flat and the front face rounded, an unusual form apparently copied from ‘Spa water’ glass bottles made for Spa, a town near Liège, in Belgium. On each flask, the upper part of the neck is encased in a square silver mount, perhaps of Dutch workmanship, chased with leafy pendants and one with a screw-threaded top with small silver cap, possibly a replacement. Painted on the front is a landscape with a European church, its steeple topped by a cross, with buildings and trees and a large cross standing in the foreground, a mountain peak visible beyond. On the reverse are two different flowering plants; on both faces of the necks, long leafy sprays; and along each side a band of rosettes. RCIN 1058.1 has lost its silver threaded screw-cap.

These flasks are among the earliest Chinese porcelains on which the Christian church and cross are represented. Certain square bottles after the form of contemporary ships’ flasks are painted with a similar large cross and with the instruments of the Passion.

Text adapted from Chinese and Japanese Works of Art in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen: Volume I.