Lot 3622. An exceptionally fine and rare pair of doucai ‘Peach’ bowls, Marks and Period of Kangxi (1662-1722);14.5 cm., 5 3/4  in. Estimate 8,000,000 — 12,000,000 HKD. Lot Sold 11,440,000 HKD. Photo: Sotheby’s.

each exquisitely potted with elegant rounded sides raised on a tall slightly tapered foot encircled by a classic scroll band, decorated around the exterior in bright translucent enamels with a continuous frieze of a single undulating knotty stem bearing pairs of multicolour peaches, as well as budding and blooming flowers, amidst numerous slender pale green leaves, all below a border of repeated wan symbols in cobalt-blue at the rim, the interior similarly decorated with a central medallion of a yellow wan symbol surrounded by three further peaches borne on a ring of flowering and leafy stem, the countersunk base inscribed in underglaze blue with a six-character reign mark in regular script within a double circle. 

Provenance: Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 27th October 1992, lot 167.

Literature: Sotheby’s Hong Kong, Twenty Years, 1973-1993, Hong Kong, 1993, pl. 251 (one of a pair).

Note: These bowls are notable for the elegant and unusual design which has been restricted to a narrow band as though a wreath has been wrapped around each bowl. The refined composition is accentuated by the variation of colours and delicacy of the enamelling which illustrate carefully observed details: the ripeness of the peaches is finely captured through pointillist iron-red dots and the blossoms are rendered both in full bloom with darker petal tips and as buds about to open. Also uncommon is the swastika border which is composed of stylised wan characters (meaning ‘ten-thousand’ in Chinese) which acts to strengthen and multiply the good wishes conveyed on these bowls.

With its highly auspicious decoration, this pair of bowls was possibly part of the large production for the Kangxi Emperor’s sixtieth birthday celebrations in 1713 for which peaches featured as the main motif.  Symbolic of longevity, this design of peaches immediately evokes the celestial peach orchard of Xiwangmu. Furthermore, four pairs of peaches amongst blossoming branches is a talisman to ward off evil as well as totalling the propitious number eight.

A closely related example in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Porcelains in Polychrome and Contrasting Colours, Hong Kong, 1999, pl. 202, where it is noted that the aesthetic beauty of the bowl is a result of the combination of naturalistic and abstracted elements, evidenced in the fruit and flowers respectively. Another pair of bowls of this type is published in Helen D. Ling and E.T. Chow, Collection of Chinese Ceramics from the Pavilion of Ephemeral Attainment, vol. II, Hong Kong, 1950, pl. 104; and a single bowl, from the Avery Brundage collection, is illustrated in Therese Tse Bartholomew, Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art, San Francisco, 2006, p. 226, where the author notes that the combination of the swastika (wan), peach blossoms (taohua), and peaches (tao) represents the wish ‘may your ten thousand longevities be without limit’ (wanshou wuji). Thus, as the term ‘ten thousand longevities’ could only be applied to the emperor and empress, the motif essentially expressed a wish for the emperor to have eternal longevity.

Compare also a Yongzheng bowl of this type, but with a band of bats amidst foliage encircling the rim and foot and a petal band above the foot, from the Dr Robert Barron and Meiyintang collections, illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 4, pt. II, London, 2010, no. 1746.

Although the decoration on these bowls does not closely follow a specific Chenghua design, it nevertheless takes its inspiration from the Chenghua period (1465-87) through the choice of the doucai technique and the painting style. Compare, for example, the execution of the leafy branch and manner in which the fruit has been painted in yellow and iron-red on a Chenghua mark and period bowl, excavated from the waste heaps of the Ming Imperial Kilns from Zhushan, Jingdezhen, included in the exhibition A Legacy of Chenghua, The Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1993, cat. no. C115. The continuous band of a fruiting and flowering tree is found on a Chenghua stemcup, which depicts two boughs of fruiting apple branches amongst which sit a pair of birds, such as one in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included in the Special Exhibition of Ch’eng-hua Porcelain Ware, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2003, cat. no. 170.

Sotheby’s. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Hong Kong, 08 oct. 2014