A RARE PAIR OF FAMILLE VERTE 'BOY FOREIGNERS' AS CANDLESTICKS Kangxi period, circa 1700 The cheerful standing boys smiling and each with their left hand resting on their left hips whilst holding a lotus-cup candleholder and ritual cloth in their right hands, wearing floral decorated green ground jackets tied with a yellow sash at the waist, and with knee-length 'noire' boots over their yellow-ground pants and standing on a conjoined rockwork base painted in a classic egg-and-spinach glaze. 11 1/2in (29.3cm) high (2). Footnotes: 康熙時期 約1700年 珍稀五彩綠衫《洋童子》燭臺一對 Published Cohen & Cohen, Take Two!, Antwerp, 2017, pp. 126-128, no. 24 出版： 倫敦Cohen & Cohen古董行，《Take Two!》，安特衛普，2016年，頁126-128，圖版編號24 These are a very rare example of this early figural candlestick, finely modelled and decorated with distinctively cheerful expressions on their faces. Pairs of laughing 'Chinese' boys carrying pots of lotus are well recorded, however in this instance the inclusion of bulging eyes, tight-knot eyebrows and large flat noses suggest that these figures represent foreigners, perhaps from central Asia, India or even possibly Africa. These boys appear to be attendants bearing some sort of ritual vessel, indicated by the cloth covering their hands. It is also interesting to compare the bulging eyes and the general stance with left hand on hip and right cup-bearing hand on another famille verte figure of an African cup-bearer illustrated by Michael Cohen and William Motley, Mandarin and Menagerie, Chinese and Japanese Export Ceramic Figures, Vol. I: The James E. Sowell Collection, Hong Kong, 2008, pp. 58-59, no. 1.6. References: an identical pair to these is in the Medeiros e Almeida Museum, Lisbon; Antunes, 1999, p. 61, a pair of famille verte boys; Antunes, 2000, p. 31, a pair of tall famille verte boys on stands; Alves, et al., 1998, p. 318, no. 124, a pair of famille verte boys; Howard & Ayers, 1978, p. 579, no. 600, a pair of famille verte boys of simpler type.