Lot 56
![[FROM THE COLLECTION OF BENJAMIN EVERETT GILL] TWO FAMILLE ROSE SMALL VASES](https://media.app.artisio.co/media/104cbde6-0d38-43cb-9e0f-bb721ef57bcf/inventory/76489e0b-5fcf-46f0-8b88-e150beded1e8/21d22c9c-79e9-4b07-b389-cae9fab43fb0/0001_gciFVy_original.jpg)
[FROM THE COLLECTION OF BENJAMIN EVERETT GILL] TWO FAMILLE ROSE SMALL VASES
20TH CENTURY
Auction: 13 March 2024 from 10:00 GMT
Description
二十世紀 乾隆款 粉彩百花不落地小天球瓶 及 花押款 梅紋獸耳小尊
comprising: a ‘millefleur’ bottle vase, the base inscribed with a four-character Qianlong mark; and a ‘prunus’ zun vase, the base with a ‘shou’ motif mark, both on openwork wooden base
Dimensions
heights: 12cm and 6.3cm
Provenance
From the collection of Benjamin Everett Gill (1838-1901) from Aberdeen. Benjamin E Gill was a shipwright with Hall, Russell & Company. He built and sailed to Japan in 1869 on the Jho Sho Maru with Thomas Blake Glover who had commissioned the vessel. After they arrived in Nagasaki in January 1870, Thomas B Glover sold the boat to the Kumamoto Domain and that started the Japanese navy. A collection of Asian Art was brought back to Scotland by 1884 when Benjamin E Gill got married. The illustration shown Benjamin E Gill in Nagasaki in the early 1870s.
The collection was passed down by direct descent to the current owner's father and mother, Michael Peter Gill (1934-2015) and Shiona Airlie (1953-2023), and subsequently grew. Michael P Gill was the head of art at George Watson's College, and Shiona Airlie, who had a lifelong love of everything Chinese, its history, culture and language, was the author of Thistle and Bamboo: The Life and Times of Sir James Stewart Lockhart (1989) and Scottish Mandarin: The Life and Times of Sir Reginald Johnston (2012). Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston, KCMG, CBE was a Scottish diplomat and colonial official who served as the tutor and advisor to Puyi, the last emperor of China.