Pair of vases. China, Qing dynasty. Green family, 19th century

Pair of vases. China, Qing dynasty. Green family, 19th century.
Hand-painted porcelain.
Signed on top of poem.
Calligraphic inscription (poem), on the reverse.
Measurements: 57 x 25 x 25 cm.
Pair of hand-painted Chinese vases polychrome on white with representations of figurative scenes decorating the bellies. They are country scenes enlivened by elegant ladies doing work in the open air, in a landscape that follows the precepts of traditional Chinese painting. On the back of the vases are poems in traditional Chinese script and the signature at the top. The vases have organically inspired openwork handles. They belong to the so-called Green Family. The term Green Family is the Western name for a style of Chinese polychrome porcelain derived from wucai (literally, 'five colours'). Wucai was created in the Ming dynasty and has been widely used in China ever since. It is characterised by only some of the motifs being executed in cobalt-blue underglaze, while the rest of the decoration is applied already on the glaze. In addition, black glaze is added for the outlines, in the early days covered with a translucent green glaze to fix it. The Green Family style is a type of wucai called yingcai ("solid colours"), which is characterised by the predominance of copper oxide green. The name yingcai refers to the quality of the glazes, which are crystalline because they are mostly applied to the glaze.