Chinese Export Silver Rosewater Sprinkler, probably by Linchong

This heavy but elegantly-proportioned Chinese export silver rosewater sprinkler most probably was made in Guangdong (Canton) or Hong Kong for the Islamic export market, in the early 19th century. The style is influenced by Georgian silver forms of the time.

It sits on a flared foot, has a flattened spherical component where the foot joins the body, and another on the stem. The body itself is rounded and gadrooned in high relief to match the foot. The stem has a further gadrooned band, which otherwise is plain and rises to a rounded top pierced with small holes to allow rosewater to be emitted.

An almost identical similar sprinkler with pseudo marks is in the Royal Ontario Museum. See Kaellgren (2024) for an illustration. This example is attributed to the Chinese silversmithing firm Linchong, and it is reasonable to assume that the example here was also made by Linchong, though it has no clear maker’s marks.

The Canton-based firm Linchong was one of the earliest makers to export to western markets and to make its wares more saleable it added marks which mimicked English hallmarks in addition to Chinese shopmarks. Examples of Linchong silver without these marks, such as the sprinkler here, almost certainly was not intended for export to the west but to Islamic markets, such as the Malay world in Southeast Asia where rosewater sprinklers were used in many traditional ceremonies most particularly Malay wedding ceremonies. The rim of the foot however does have three marks which might be seen as pseudo-Arabic marks.

The sprinkler is of solid silver and is in excellent condition.

 

Above: The Raja Muda of Selangor (Malaysia) welcoming back his father, the Sultan of Selangor, and his mother, by sprinkling rosewater on their hands from a silver rosewater sprinkler, 1959. (Reproduced from Malaya: The Journal of the British Association of Malaya, February 1960).