Lot 3136. A fine doucai 'narcissus' dish, Mark and period of Yongzheng (1723-1735); 20.7 cm., 8 1/8 in. Estimate 1,800,000 - 2,500,000 HKD. Lot sold 3,400,000 HKD. Photo: Sotheby's 2013

finely potted with shallow curved sides resting on a slightly tapered foot, exquisitely painted in brilliant enamels to the interior with a central medallion containing narcissus growing among rocks, their leaves in contrasted tones of yellowish and darker green and the numerous flowers and buds on each stem in white enamel with lemon-yellow centres and purple-tipped calyxes, the pierced ornamental rocks finely drawn in delicate shades of cobalt blue with a bough laden with two full clusters of red nandina berries arching to one side and a small tuft of purple lingzhi below, all within a double-line border repeated at the rim, the exterior painted with further blue rocks, two with lingzhi with contrasted red, yellow and purple heads, together with bamboo and narcissus and the third with nandina berries, all between underglaze-blue double-line borders, the base inscribed with a six-character mark in underglaze blue within a double circle.

PROVENANCE: A Japanese collection.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 11th April 2008, lot 2971.

NOTE: This exquisitely painted and elegantly coloured nature scene where underglaze and overglaze colours are interlaced in a complex yet very harmonious pattern to form a naturalistic three-dimensional picture is arguably one of the most delightful paintings in the doucai palette. The combination of lingzhi, narcissus, nandina berries and rocks is used as a rebus that stands for ‘lingzhi fairy bestows birthday greetings’ [zuixian zhushou] (see the exhibition catalogue The Hundred Flowers. Botanical Motifs in Chinese Art, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, 1985, cat. no. 46). A closely related dish, sold in our London rooms and now in the Meiyintang collection, is illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 2, London, 1994, pl. 765; another from the Toguri Museum of Art, Tokyo, illustrated in Nakazawa Fujio, ‘Chinese Ceramics in the Toguri Museum of Art’, Orientations, April 1988, fig. 19, was sold in our London rooms, 9thJune 2004, lot 4; and a pair of dishes from the T.Y. Chao collection was included in the exhibition Ming and Ch’ing Porcelain from the Collection of the T.Y. Chao Family Foundation, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1978, cat. no. 64.

This design of flowers and rocks is also known from two kesi panels, probably of earlier date, woven with the name of the Song painter Cui Po; one from the Imperial Collection is included in the Illustrated Catalogue of Chinese Government Exhibits for the International Exhibition of Chinese Art in London, vol. IV, London, 1935, pl. 11; and the other from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, was included in the exhibition The Arts of the Ming Dynasty, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, 1952, cat. no. 328.

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