Baba-Nonya or Straits Chinese Spittoons, Malaysia

Magnificent Pair of Straits Chinese Floor Spittoons

This pair of magnificent floor spittoons is decorated in finely rendered polychrome with a famille rose lavender background. Each is painted with white panels enclosing a phoenix amid blue and red peonies, and other panels enclosing further peonies, all embedded in a lavender background embellished with turquoise and pale green Indian lotus scrolls all framed within borders of stiff lappets and pendant ruyi-heads.

The interiors are finished with a light turquoise glaze.

The overall condition is fine other than for some barely detectable restoration to the base of one, a hairline to the base of the other and some fritting to the rim of one.

A spittoon with similar Indian lotus scrolling is illustrated in: The Southeast Asian Ceramics Society – West Malaysia Chapter, Nonya Ware and Kitchen Ch’ing, Oxford University Press, 1981, p.117. Other related examples were offered by Christie’s in their ‘Straits Chinese Ceramics, Gold & Silver’ sale March 25, 1995, lots 56 & 57.