A large pair of Chinese Daya Zhai style yellow ground grisaille-decorated vases and covers , painted with fruiting and flowering branches including wisteria and peony, with long tailed birds perched in the branches, with turquoise and blue key-fret borders, iron-red details, painted with Chinese Daya Zhai characters and an oval panel bearing two opposing dragons and inscribed, 天地家春 (spring throughout heaven and earth - all one family), the bases with Yong Qng Chang Chun four character marks in iron red, possibly Republican Period or later and after Guangxu originals, 62cm high (2) These vases are based on original 1870s designs associated with the Dowager Empress Cixi. The mark Daya Zhai refers to 'Studio of the Greater Odes', which has never been physically identified. The original Daya Zhai porcelain was intended to furnish a restored Yuanming Yuan (Old Summer Palace) after its destruction in 1860. However, owing to soaring costs, as well as a difficult social and political climate in 1870's China, the restoration did not proceed and the original porcelain was then stockpiled in the Forbidden City.