The Schlumberger Fish Bowls:

A Pair of Chinese Yongzheng Period Famille-Rose Fish Bowls

China, Qing Dynasty, Yongzheng Period (1723–1735)

Each bowl is finely potted with a generous, globular body that rises to an everted lip, the exterior brilliantly enamelled in the famille-rose palette with blossoming tree peonies and other floral sprays, accompanied by birds perched on and flying between flowering branches of prunus and magnolia. The design is vivid and lyrical, with a restrained yet lively composition that reflects the finesse of early 18th-century enamel work.

Around the upper shoulder, a narrow frieze of lilac-pink encircles the vessel, framed by gold borders and punctuated by applied biscuit lion-mask handles, each with gilt-metal drop rings imitating bronze mounts. Beneath the main floral reserve, a lappet border of stylised lotus petals, outlined in iron red and infilled with pale turquoise, encircles the foot rim. The interiors are enamelled with further floral sprays, including peonies and cherry blossoms, rather than the usual depiction of fish and aquatic plants, suggesting a decorative or alternative functional purpose within a European context.

Context and Comparative Examples

Porcelain vessels of this type were most likely potted in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province—the primary centre for imperial ceramics—and subsequently decorated in Guangzhou (Canton), where famille-rose enamels were refined for the export trade. The form, derived from archaistic bronze censers (gui), first appeared in Chinese porcelain in the 1720s. An inscribed example dated 1734 identifies it explicitly as a censer, though many were adapted to suit the tastes and functions of European patrons.

While large bowls of this kind were originally used for housing ornamental fish, the present pair’s floral interior decoration and European mounts indicate their likely reinterpretation in the West—as jardinières, wine coolers, or cisterns. This repurposing mirrored European cisterns in silver or porcelain, often similarly fitted with drop-ring handles and displayed in pairs on stands.

Examples of related use and form can be found in several prominent European collections:

– A pair with similar peony decoration is in the White Sea Hall, Royal Palace, Stockholm.

– Another pair resides in the state apartments of the Royal Palace, Turin.

– A related bowl at Wallington Hall, Northumberland—described in 1769 by Arthur Young as a “noble china cistern”—features identical lion-mask handles and closely comparable decoration (fig. 1).

– Sir Philip Sassoon owned a comparable bowl with butterflies and floral sprays, illustrated in George C. Williamson, The Book of Famille Rose, Tokyo, 1970, pl. LIII.

– Another example remains at Blickling Hall, Norfolk.

The bowls’ association with goldfish culture in 18th-century England is also notable. Goldfish were first recorded in Britain in 1691 but imported more routinely from the 1730s, often via private trade. Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond, is known to have housed goldfish in a Chinese vessel at Goodwood, and Horace Walpole bred goldfish at Strawberry Hill. The Goodwood bowls (fig. 2), which remain in situ, bear close comparison to the present pair.

Over time, such vessels often evolved in function: the Wallington cistern was repurposed as a jardinière by the Trevelyans in the early 19th century and later filled with water again in the 1920s to entertain children—testament to the enduring versatility and appeal of these hybrid objects.

These bowls are superb examples of the technical brilliance and decorative refinement achieved during the Yongzheng reign. The evenness of the glaze, the delicate yet confident brushwork, and the crispness of the applied masks all attest to the exceptional standards of production at Jingdezhen during the early Qing period. The colour palette—dominated by soft turquoise, deep rose pinks, and finely shaded greens—is particularly pleasing, achieving both harmony and vibrancy in a manner characteristic of the finest famille-rose decoration. In both scale and condition, this pair represents an extremely rare survival, made all the more striking by their grand European mounts.

São Schlumberger

The pair belonged to the celebrated collector and patron São Schlumberger (1929–2007), wife of oil magnate Pierre Schlumberger. The couple’s Paris home, the Hôtel de Luzy on the rue Férou, was among the most spectacular salons of its day. Designed by Pierre Barde, Valerian Rybar, and Daigres in a heady mix of classical and contemporary styles, it became a landmark of cosmopolitan opulence.

Mrs Schlumberger had a particular appreciation for large-scale Chinese porcelain and owned multiple pairs of famille-rose fish bowls. A different pair is visible in a photograph of her Avenue Charles Floquet apartment by Eric Bowman, published in Vanity Fair (“The Wow of São,” October 2010), where they appear amidst a theatrical display of furniture and objects that exemplified her signature taste.