Art Peritus Selects

A fine Chinese-export famille-rose monteith; the crenelated everted rim, bulbous waist and flared ring foot decorated with mums peonies and blossoms. According to the description of a similar piece in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, monteith bowls were first brought west from China in the late seventeenth century and used to chill wineglasses. The monteith was first filled with cold water, and each glass hung by its foot from a notch in the rim so that the bowl of every glass was submerged.