Pair of Chinese Export Style Painted Tole Wall Pockets, Italian Mid Century

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Pair Of Chinese Export Style Painted Tole Wall Pockets, 20th Century

This decorative pair of wall pockets is executed in … Read more Pair Of Chinese Export Style Painted Tole Wall Pockets, 20th Century

This decorative pair of wall pockets is executed in painted tole with a rich cinnabar-red ground and gilt-highlighted scalloped rims, the undulating crestlines forming an architectural silhouette that reads at once as playful and refined. Each pocket is constructed with a curved front and fitted backplate designed for wall mounting, the top edge cut in a rhythmic wave and picked out with a narrow gold border that crisply articulates the profile and visually frames the painted scenes. Across the front and the upper backplate, hand-painted chinoiserie vignettes unfold in the traditional Chinese Export idiom: robed figures posed in courtly conversation and music-making, distant pavilion architecture and stylized rockwork, palms and flowering shrubs, and a small bird in flight above a low horizon, all rendered in a restrained palette of black, ochre, green, and gold against the saturated red field. The decoration is further animated by scattered gilt cloud-like motifs that provide atmospheric movement and a sense of depth, while the slightly naïve, storybook handling of the figures and landscapes intentionally echoes 18th- and 19th-century Western interpretations of Asian subjects. The interiors are finished in the same red tone, emphasizing their dual role as functional containers for letters, dried arrangements, or small decorative objects and as purely ornamental wall sculptures, with the paired format designed to flank a mirror, doorway, or chimneypiece. While no maker’s mark is visible in the photographs provided, the materials, construction, and chinoiserie program are consistent with later 20th-century decorative tole production made in homage to earlier Chinese Export and European lacquer traditions.

Measurements: 9 in. x 11.5 in. x 5.125 in. x. See less