The jar is painted with three oval panels, each with playful putti on a dark brown ground, with gilt mask borders.
It bears similar enamelled decoration to that on two miniature vases in the Burghley Collection, known as the Buckingham vases, or ‘the Duke of Buckingham’s China’, see CER0730.
The jar, now extensively restored, was originally fitted with a pierced silver-gilt cover, as the inventory known as the 1690 Devonshire Schedule confirms: ‘A Jarr Guilt and Enameld with Cupids in three Ovalls the Cover open Work Silver guilt.’
The Schedule listed an immense bequest from Elizabeth, Countess of Exeter (1619-1689) to her daughter Anne, Countess of Exeter (1649-1703).
It also included the Buckingham vases which represent the earliest recorded European hard paste porcelain.
