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Lot Essay
The poem, composed by the Jiaqing Emperor, praises the pleasure of drinking tea and appears on tea trays and tea pots of different palettes. S.W. Bushell translates the poem in Oriental Ceramic Art, London, 1981, p. 239, as:
'Finest tribute tea of the first picking
And a bright full moon prompt a line of verse.
A lively fire glows in the bamboo stove,
The water is boiling in the stone griddle,
Small bubbles rise like ears of fish or crab.
Of rare Ch'i-Ch'iang tea, rolled in tiny balls,
One cup is enough to lighten the heart,
And dissipate the early winter chill.'
An identical tray, of Jiaqing date, is illustrated by Anthony J. Allen, Allen's Introduction to Later Chinese Porcelain, New Zealand, 1996, p. 193, pl. 109, and another was sold at Christie's Paris, 13 June 2007, lot 223. A similarly decorated teapot in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, is illustrated by Liu Liang-yu, A Survey of Chinese Ceramics, vol. 5, Taiwan, 1991, p. 216.
'Finest tribute tea of the first picking
And a bright full moon prompt a line of verse.
A lively fire glows in the bamboo stove,
The water is boiling in the stone griddle,
Small bubbles rise like ears of fish or crab.
Of rare Ch'i-Ch'iang tea, rolled in tiny balls,
One cup is enough to lighten the heart,
And dissipate the early winter chill.'
An identical tray, of Jiaqing date, is illustrated by Anthony J. Allen, Allen's Introduction to Later Chinese Porcelain, New Zealand, 1996, p. 193, pl. 109, and another was sold at Christie's Paris, 13 June 2007, lot 223. A similarly decorated teapot in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, is illustrated by Liu Liang-yu, A Survey of Chinese Ceramics, vol. 5, Taiwan, 1991, p. 216.