Chinese Export Porcelain Baluster Vase, Hand-Painted Grape Vine & Berries, c.1960

This vase has been quietly showing off since approximately 1960 and has no plans to stop.

The form is a classic Chinese baluster — wide shoulders tapering to a narrow waist, then flaring again into a trumpet foot, with a constricted neck that opens into a wide, flat-lipped collar. The kind of silhouette that has been considered correct for about four hundred years, which is either reassuring or intimidating depending on your relationship with tradition. This one opts for reassuring.

The decoration is hand-painted in the sgraffito technique: a sprawling composition of grape vines, round berries, and large lobed leaves rendered in cobalt blue, purple, and forest green on a warm cream ground. The leaves have been scratched through with a fine needle before firing — the white lines you see are the clay body showing through the pigment, a technique that gives the foliage a botanical illustration quality that no transfer print can replicate. The neck carries a delicate tendril-and-berry border; the foot has a running scroll pattern in cobalt blue.

The base is unglazed white with a characteristic beige tint and a clean foot ring — no backstamp, which is entirely typical of Chinese export porcelain of this period. The top view reveals the wide flat collar and the narrow neck dropping into darkness, which is either very elegant or slightly ominous. We're going with elegant.

• Chinese export porcelain baluster vase, c.1960
• Hand-painted grape vine, berries & leaves in cobalt blue, purple & forest green
• Sgraffito technique — needle-scratched leaf veining through pigment
• Tendril-and-berry neck border; running scroll foot pattern
• Wide flat collar lip with cobalt blue rim band
• Unglazed white base, no backstamp — typical of Chinese export ware
• Excellent condition — no chips or cracks
• 26.5 × 10 cm, 515 g
• China, c.1960

WARNING: This vase will make any bunch of flowers look like it was arranged by someone who actually knows what they're doing. Maison de L'oro accepts no responsibility for any subsequent Pinterest spiral this may trigger.