A VERY RARE PAIR OF FAMILLE ROSE 'BOYS' JARS AND COVERS QIANLONG SIX-CHARACTER SEAL MARKS IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE AND OF THE PERIOD (1736-1795) Each jar is finely decorated around the sides with a scene of boys at play: one boy riding a hobby horse, another seated on the shoulders of an older boy, others playing instruments, carrying banners or plantain leaves, all shown in a procession on a garden terrace below multi-colored clouds and between a band of key fret encircling the foot and a band of iron-red bats in flight amidst blue clouds on the neck. The domed cover is similarly decorated with a corner of the terrace below the knob handle decorated in iron red. 11 ¼ in. (28.5 cm.) high
Provenance
John Wanamaker (1838-1922) Collection. Mary Brown Wanamaker Warburton (1869-1954) Collection. C. Egerton Warburton (1902-1973), and thence by descent.
Post Lot Text
This exceptional pair offamille rosejars and covers was formerly in the collection of John Wanamaker (1838-1922) and his wife, Mary Brown Wanamaker (1839-1920). John Wanamaker was an American merchant, as well as a religious, civic and political figure, best known as an entrepreneur and founder of John Wanamaker & Co., considered the first and grandest department store in Philadelphia, a business that was expanded to New York, London and Paris. John Wanamaker was known not only as an innovator and merchandising genius, but also as a philanthropist and avid collector of art and antiques, many acquired on trips abroad. Unfortunately, most of the collection was lost when their sixty-room mansion, Lindenhurst, in Pennsylvania, burned down in 1907. After the fire, the Wanamakers built a new Lindenhurst, and it is possible that the present pair of jars, as well as a jadeite figure of Guanyin and a pair of jadeite parrots, were among the artworks purchased to furnish it. The jadeite Guanyin and parrots were sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 17-18 January 1989, lots 1001 and 1047. Family history records that the jars, figure of Guanyin and the parrots were all displayed together, the Guanyin in the center, flanked by the parrots, and then the jars at the ends. This arrangement became a tradition in the family as they were passed down through the years to other members of the family, the first of whom was their daughter, Mary Brown Wanamaker, known as "Minnie" (1869-1954), who married Major Barclay Harding Warburton (1866-1954) in 1895, and then to Minnie's son C. Egerton Warburton (1902-1973).
Mary Brown Wanamaker's husband Major Warburton (1866-1954), who became the publisher of the Philadelphia Evening Telegraph upon his father's death, was a member of Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders, thechargé d'affairsto President Wilson in London, 1914-1917, and an aide-de-camp to General Pershing in Paris in 1917. Through their trips to Europe, including Biarritz in southern France, in the early years of the twentieth century, the Warburtons became acquainted with members of the Romanov family, especially Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, brother-in-law and second cousin to Tsar Nicholas. The rich family history is recorded in family photos dating from 1909 to 1914, which feature Warburton and Wanamaker family members at various locations, both in Europe and at home in the United States.
