Green Chinese Jar

Ruth Payne Burgess, born Montpelier, VT 1865-died New York City 1934 · 1924

This painting shows a large pale green urn and a small figure of a Chinese scholar. After the fall of the Qing, China’s last imperial dynasty, hundreds of thousands of porcelains, paintings, and sculptures made their way out of China and into Western hands. A Chinese jar described as “pale green . . . on an ebony standard” was given as a gift at the society wedding of Countess Alice S. Szechenyi and Count Bela Hadik in 1931. Ruth Payne Burgess’s painting reflects the vogue among fashionable ladies of the 1920s for “Oriental” gowns and interiors.