A pair of Chinese porcelain jardinières with European gilt-bronze mounts. Each a thickly potted tub, with sides channelled below the rim and curving in below. The decoration, in moulded relief and coloured in enamels outlined in black, depicts on one side a galloping qilin, a phoenix perched on a rock and a wutong (according to legend, the only tree on which the phoenix would land), and on the other, a flying phoenix, a qilin and a peony growing by rocks; below the rim is a narrow border with half-lotus bloom cartouches among leafy scrollwork, and above the foot, a frieze incorporating half-blooms and pomegranates. The mouth rim is enclosed in a foliate band, attached to which is a pair of gilt-bronze dragons with outstretched wings, their scaly bodies and coiled tails hanging down the sides, piercing the vase in two places, with square Greek key-fret handles rising above.

The vessel proper is supported on a heavy, gilt-bronze pedestal, with a wave-scrolled cup emerging from a ribbed ring above a plain, turned shaft, the domed lower part cast with overlaid stylised foliage in the form of triangles between reed-scroll feet, resting on a platform with moulded edge and with foliate clasps, between a stylised, fluted, spreading ring, on a square base scrolled on two sides, its top decorated with reptilian entwined dragons in relief in the corners, supported on four ‘turtle’ feet composed of overlaid circles and eight claws, below a ‘Chinese bracket’, with sunk castors.

Comparable square base mounts almost certainly made by Benjamin Vulliamy, the King's Clockmaker, are found on three famille rose jardinières in the Collection (RCINs 48 and 101659.1-2), and also on a set of four jardinières with bowls of dark blue Spode ware in imitation of Chinese porcelain (RCINs 700.1–4). This suggests that the mounts here may also be attributed to Vulliamy.

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