Both figures are depicted wearing a simple iron-red loin cloth, one with florets and foliate scrolls in blue and yellow enamels, 30.7cm high.
Engaged in their national sport, this group is frozen in time, unaware that they are amongst the most important pieces of Japanese ceramic culture in the western world.
For some years they were employed as a door stop at Burghley!
The 1688 Burghley Inventory records: ‘The Wardrobe or Clock Chamber. 2 China boyes wrestling.’
The 1804 Burghley Inventory records:’Billiard Room, Ornamental china. ‘2 chinese figures coloured. 2 do. do. wrestling.’
