A pouring vessel with fluted sides, ornately carved leaf handle with two freely rotating rings, pale green nephrite jade, carved, China, formerly in the Guthrie Collection

An expertly crafted pouring vessel fashioned from a single piece of very pale green nephrite jade.
The main body of the vessel is oval with fluted sides and at one end is a broad, compartmented, half-oval, open-topped spout that links to the main vessel via a roughly semi-circular hole in the partition wall. The interiors of both the vessel and spout are smooth and polished.
On the opposite end from the spout, there is a tall, ornately carved handle in the form of curled and curling leaves with two drooping flower buds - possibly poppies. Each bud has a single round, blind hole that appears to have once held a set stone or other ornament, but both are now missing. Hanging from each of two completely curled leaves is a ring of circular cross-section, each ring being separate and freely rotating but having been carved in situ out of the same piece of nephrite.
The exterior walls are fluted with each flute having a central, vertical ridge running up to the rim and ending in a slight protrusion in the middle of the otherwise scalloped edge. The spout is "supported" by a carved, pierced, bifurcated and curled leaf frond.
The vessel stands upon a short, oval, flared foot that has been recessed and carved in low relief as a multi-petalled flower.
There are a few small, natural cracks present.

This spouted vessel was originally in the Guthrie collection and was purchased for the sum of £72-0-0, when he sold 81 of his objects to The India Museum in 1868. It was subsequently transferred to The South Kensington Museum (later renamed The Victoria & Albert Museum) in 1879.

Charles Seton Guthrie was an important collector of eastern coins and Mughal Empire jade and rock crystal objects. He was the second son of Scottish parents, both of whom were from noble and landed families, and his father worked for the East India Company in Calcutta.
Guthrie most probably developed his interest in jade and rock crystal when he studied geology as a 17 year old cadet in 1825 in Addiscombe, and he joined the Bengal Engineers in 1828.
Through his family’s established connection with the Inglis and Lister families, he became acquainted with Harry Inglis and his Anglo-Indian wife Sophia (nee Lister). He may well have received gifts of objects that Harry had acquired as proceeds from his Indian military campaigns. Harry was the son and heir of George Inglis who owned Inglis & Co., a large Indian trading company.
During his time in India, Charles Guthrie enhanced his collections with acquisitions financed by his army pay and also income from properties in his late mother’s estate.
He subsequently retired at the honorary rank of Colonel in 1857, although he returned to England in 1855, at the same time as Harry and Sophia, due to having 2 years of accumulated leave.
Following Harry’s death in 1860, his embalmed body was returned to India, accompanied by Sophia and Charles, where it was interred in an above-ground tomb. Sophia inherited Harry’s vast estate, which almost certainly contained many fine jewels and Mughal objects. Sophia began living together with Charles in Calcutta, bearing him a son in 1862. Following a financially significant arrangement being agreed by Sophia with Charles, the two eventually married in 1863 with the family returning to England a short time thereafter.
Sophia died in 1866, with Charles being named as an executor with instruction to liquidate her un-itemised English estate which included “jewels, trinkets and shawls”.
Soon thereafter, in 1868, Guthrie sold part of his collection of jade and rock crystal objects to The India Museum and his large coin collection to a museum in Germany. Colonel Charles Seton Guthrie died in 1874 and the remainder of his collections was sold at auction, in accordance with the terms of his will, with many objects finding their way into other important collections and then subsequently to the museum.

This Chinese pouring vessel has been fashioned from a single piece of nephrite jade, which is a hard and durable material that requires patience and skill to work. Although it is a hard material, when it has been worked to give fine edges or thicknesses, it can be prone to damage by sharp impacts or significant and rapid changes in temperature.
It was previously owned by the notable collector of Mughal jade and rock crystal objects, Colonel Charles Seton Guthrie. Part of his collection was bought by the Indian Museum in London in 1868 and transferred to this museum in 1879.

02586(IS)