A rare famille-verte biscuit 'landscape' rouleau vase, Qing dynasty, Kangxi period (1662-1722)

14 septembre 2019

A rare famille-verte biscuit 'landscape' rouleau vase, Qing dynasty, Kangxi period (1662-1722)

Lot 898. A rare famille-verte biscuit 'landscape' rouleau vase, Qing dynasty, Kangxi period (1662-1722). Height 16 1/2 in., 42 cm. Estimate 30,000 — 50,000 USD. Lot sold 212,500 USD. Courtesy Sotheby's.

well-painted and enameled in shades of green, blue and aubergine with a continuous scene of scholars in an idyllic mountainous landscape, some seated in their studios, one on horseback on a grassy bank, a pair conversing on a hill, the sky and water left in the biscuit, the shoulder with lobed medallions enclosing auspicious objects on a scrollwork ground, the neck with a further landscape scene, all between petal lappets encircling the base and bands of keyfret, ruyi and scrolls above, the base with a black-enameled shou character within a circular impression, mounted on a revolving base (2).

Provenance: Collection of Richard Bennett (b. 1849), Esq.
Edgar Gorer, London, 1911.
M. Parish-Watson, New York.
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874-1960).
John D. Rockefeller, III (1906-1978).

Exhibited: The Grand Gallery, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1974-1975, cat. no. 80.
Dreicer & Co., New York, circa 1911.

Literature: Catalogue of the Collection of Old Chinese Porcelains formed by Richard Bennett, Esq., London, 1911, cat. no. 316.
Edgar Gorer and J. F. Blacker, Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, vol. 1, London, 1911, pl. 105.

Note: It is rare to find such a finely enameled biscuit vase of this size and subject matter. The bucolic scene of scholars in a landscape, with studios and pavilions dotting the hills and fisherman out on the river, is confidently and delicately rendered in a range of blues, greens, aubergine, and painterly strokes of black.

Compare a famille-verte biscuit-form stand from the Jie Rui Tang Collection, similarly enameled and painted with a related landscape scene, sold in these rooms, 20th March 2018, lot 354. A smaller rouleau vase, freely painted with flowers and rockwork, is illustrated in Hobson, Rackham & King, Chinese Ceramics in Private Collections, London, 1931, pl. 4. See also a brushpot painted with an idyllic river scene sold in our London rooms, 12th June 2003, lot 1178.

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, NewYork, 11 september 2019