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8 avril 2013

A fine and extremely rare pair of famille-rose 'Flower-Ball' jars. Seal marks and period of Qianlong

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A fine and extremely rare pair of famille-rose 'Flower-Ball' jars. Seal marks and period of Qianlong. Photo Sotheby's

each beautifully potted of ovoid form, with gently rounded sides sweeping up to a short upright neck, delicately painted with a profusion of multi-coloured  'flower-balls' as in a whimsical vision, arranged asymmetrically and scattered throughout, some freely floating, others overlapping in small clusters of two to five blooms, all carefully painted in shaded tones of iron-red and brilliant glassy enamels in soft pastels of purplish blue, pink, apple-green, green, turquoise and light yellow, against a silky crisp transparent glaze dressing the flawless body, the shallow recessed base inscribed in underglaze blue with a six-character seal mark; 17.1 and 17 cm., 6 3/4  in. Estimation: 30,000,000 - 40,000,000 HKD

PROVENANCE: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 1st May 2001, lot 562 (one jar).

LITTERATURE: Sotheby’s. Thirty Years in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2003, pl. 354 (one jar).

Blossoms Scattered over Fresh Snow. Regina Krahl

In its abstraction this stylized floral decoration belongs to the most daring and progressive designs ever devised at the Jingdezhen imperial kilns. Its development can probably be credited to the Yongzheng Emperor’s bold initiative to go beyond tradition and to search outside the long-established framework of Chinese patterns to create new styles. Whereas his father, the Kangxi Emperor, who ruled before him, had revived and invigorated the kilns’ technical know-how, it was left to the son to breathe new life into their language of forms and designs. This did not constitute a break with the past; on the contrary, he made court artists and artisans delve into the rich store of centuries of excellence in the arts and crafts, but at the same time encouraged them not to shy away from previously unseen modes. By the time the Qianlong Emperor used wares with this design, it had become fully incorporated into the repertoire and was equally used as an embellishment on coloured and patterned backgrounds on some of the finest imperial wares.

The pattern of overlapping roundels appears to have had its origin in Japanese design, where circular heraldic family symbols of different patterns, called mon, are a popular motif of textiles, lacquer, ceramics and other works of art, first and foremost among them the emblem of a stylized circular 16-petalled chrysanthemum bloom that is used by the Emperor.

Although the adoption of this design by the Qing imperial kilns at Jingdezhen is very likely due to the Yongzheng Emperor’s interest in Japanese works of art, a similar design had already been used at Jingdezhen almost a century earlier, in the late Ming dynasty. Chinese potters at Jingdezhen began to use Japanese designs in the mid-17th century, at a time when items were created in the Japanese taste for export to Japan. Many of the blue-and-white and polychrome porcelains made for the Japanese market (shonzui and aka-e) have these roundels incorporated into the design or used as a border (e.g. Nishida Hiroko and Degawa Tetsuro, Chgoku no tji/Chinese Ceramics, vol. 10, Min matsu Shin sho no miny/Export Porcelain in the Late Ming to Early Qing, Tokyo, 1997, pls. 32, 64, 66, and p. 125, fig. 75, p. 127, fig. 81, p.131, fig. 89).

And there is even a rare Edo period polychrome tea bowl in the collection of the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo, which shows similar polychrome roundels as its main decoration, depicted overlapping, in a very similar way as on the Qing wares (ibid., pl. 46) (fig. 2). The roundels on this tea bowl are truly abstract and clearly copy distinctly Japanese mon, which can have almost any kind of abstract or naturalistic design, or bein the shape of written characters.

When the design is taken over in the Qing dynasty, however, the roundels are clearly rendered as flowers with petals radiating or spiralling from a centre, albeit very stylized, and the seemingly abstract design turns into a happy spring motif. Even though the Ming tea bowl may at first glance look like a possibly prototype, it is therefore more likely that the introduction of the design to the Qing imperial kilns is due to the Yongzheng Emperor, rather than to be modelled on a style of export ceramics.

The Yongzheng Emperor is known to have greatly appreciated Japanese aesthetics. Of particular interest to him was the Japanese art of lacquering that incorporated gold and silver (makie). Many Japanese lacquer boxes with such designs were in the court collection and some are preserved in the National Palace Museum, see the exhibition catalogue Qing gong makie. Yuan cang Riben qiqi tezhan [Gold and silver lacquer work (makie) in the Qing palace. Special exhibition of Japanese lacquer wares held by the Museum], National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2002, which states (p. 20), “The appreciation and admiration that the Yung-cheng [Yongzheng] emperor held for Japanese lacquerware was so great that he not only encouraged their production in the imperial factories, but also promoted the implementation of lacquerware styles and designs on other mediums.” In this context the authors cite as examples a painted enamel covered jar decorated with a sash across the body, and small stacked boxes joined with string in the shape of Japanese lacquer inro, made of painted enamel. The present design, often called ‘flower-ball’ pattern (piqiu hua), appears to be another example. Many of the Japanese lacquer boxes in the National Palace Museum depict such roundels (e.g. op.cit., pls. 20, 32, 61, 65, 68-71) (fig. 1), and the emperor appears to have encouraged court artists to take them as inspiration for completely Chinese designs on imperial porcelain.

At the Jingdezhen kilns the design was copied both in the doucai (‘interlocking colours’) and fencai (famille rose) palette, the former in the traditional enamels of the Ming dynasty combined with underglaze blue, the latter in the newly developed opaque pastel colours. This latter version is particularly enchanting, as it evokes early blossoms in spring scattered over fresh snow.

A similar unmarked doucai jar from the Qing court collection is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Porcelains in Polychrome and Contrasting Colours, Hong Kong, 1999, pl. 227 (fig. 3); a pair of Yongzheng doucai cups of this design from the Meiyintang collection has been sold in these rooms, 7th April 2011, lot 6, and two Yongzheng cups, one painted in doucai, the other in underglaze blue only, are published in Xu Huping, ed., Qing gong ciqi. Nanjing Bowuyuan zhencang xilie/Imperial Kiln Porcelain of Qing Dynasty. Gems of Collections in Nanjing Museum, Shanghai, 1998, pl. 25.

A similar fencai (famille rose) jar of Yongzheng mark and period was sold in these rooms, 26th November 1981, lot 742, and again 11th November 1982, lot 690. A small Yongzheng bowl in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is illustrated in Koky Shin shi zuroku. Kkiy, Yseiy/Illustrated Catalogue of Ch’ing Dynasty Porcelain in the National Palace Museum, Republic of China: K’ang-hsi Ware and Yung-cheng Ware, Tokyo, 1980, pl. 100; and a pair of bowls, of different form, was included in the exhibition Imperial Perfection. The Palace Porcelain of Three Chinese Emperors: Kangxi – Yongzheng – Qianlong. A Selection from the Wang Xing Lou Collection, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, 2004, cat. no. 49.

Only one other Qianlong jar of this design and this colouration appears to have been published, in Virginia Bower et al., The Collections of the National Gallery of Art. Systematic Catalogue: Decorative Arts, part II: Far Eastern Ceramics and Paintings; Persian and Indian Rugs and Carpets, Washington, D.C., 1998, p. 225, fromthe collection of Harry G. Steele and sold by Yamanaka, New York, prior to 1941.

The design in the Qianlong period also was used in many other combinations, on more ornate vessels with patterned or monochrome coloured grounds; for example, on two teapots in the Palace Museum, Beijing, from the Qing court collection, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. 

Porcelains with Cloisonné Enamel Decoration and Famille Rose Decoration, Hong Kong, 1999, pls 108 and 109; an interlocking vase published in Geng Baochang, Ming Qing ciqi jianding [Appraisal of Ming and Qing porcelain], Hong Kong, 1993, fig. 445; or an oval Ru-style narcissus bowl in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, included in the exhibition Qing Kang Yong Qian ming ci tezhan/Catalog of the Special Exhibition ofK’ang-hsi, Yung-cheng and Ch’ien-lung Porcelain Ware from the Ch’ing Dynasty in the National Museum Palace (sic), National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1986, cat. no. 106 (fig. 4).

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art. Hong Kong | 08 avr. 2013 - www.sothebys.com

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