With a flat everted rim above the almost-cylindrical sides tapering slightly towards the tall foot, enameled all around in the famille verte palette with butterflies in flight around a pierced rock and flowers, the rim with half-lotus heads and foliage.
A famille verte jardinière of identical form but decorated with pheasants, formerly in the collection of the Marquis of Exeter, Burghley House is in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, illustrated by Prof. Dr. Christiaan Jörg in Chinese Ceramics in the Collection of the Rijkmuseum[1]. The author dates this model as being late 17th century and states that such pieces, especially the enameled versions, are rare.
Kilburn illustrates in Transitional Wares and Their Forerunners a related but lower example decorated in early famille verte enamels[2].
The shape is based on Chinese stoneware flowerpots that were produced traditionally for centuries and used to embellish Chinese gardens and houses.
[1] Amsterdam, 1997, no. 160, p. 149
[2] Transitional Wares and Their Forerunners, exhibition catalogue Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong, 1981, no. 173
Mathilde von Rothschild was born in Frankfurt, the second oldest daughter of Charlotte and Anselm von Rothschild, the head of the Vienna House of Rothschild. Mathilde was a talented musician who studied with Frédéric Chopin. In 1849, she married the banker Wilhelm Carl von Rothschild, a cousin of her father. The couple first resided in the Rothschild house on the Zeil (Zeilpalast), but later moved to a palace in Grüneburg, and lived in a villa in Königstein im Taunus. They had three daughters two of which reached adulthood, Adelheid (who married her cousin Edmond James de Rothschild) and Minna Caroline von Rothschild (who married Maximilian von Goldschmit-Rothschild).
