Lot Essay
云想衣裳花想容,
春风拂槛露华浓。
Clouds call to mind her robes, the flowers recall her face.
Spring breezes brush the railing, dew full on the blossoms.
– Li Bai (701 - 762)
In this extraordinary painting, the bolster pillow beneath the nursing mother’s head is inscribed with these opening lines of the Qing Ping Diao (Quiet, Peaceful Melody), a song composed by the great Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai in tribute to the extraordinary Yang Guifei, beloved consort of Emperor Xuanzong. Lady Yang, celebrated as one of the Four Great Beauties of ancient China, appears throughout the song amid natural and heavenly elements: flowing clouds, blossoming flowers, radiant dew and moonlight. The pairing of this poem alongside a tranquil breastfeeding scene is a true celebration of femininity.
Oil on canvas works such as the present lot are largely associated with items made for Western consumption, but the inscription on the bolster near her elbow suggests the possibility the painting may have been made for a Chinese audience. Although Libby Lai-Pik Chan and Nina Lai-Na Wan, discussing a closely related example, locates the origins of the composition in images of odalisques, the anonymous author of the present painting transforms the scene into one of quiet intimacy between a mother and her child evocative of Chinese values surrounding motherhood. In Confucian and traditional Chinese medical philosophies, the act breastfeeding was regarded as a natural and moral duty of mothers, associated not only with the nourishment of the child but also with the transmission of maternal virtue, love, and familial bonds. (For the ‘odalisque’ thesis, see L.L.P. Chan and N.L.N. Wan, eds., The Dragon and The Eagle: American Traders in China, A Century of Trade from 1784 to 1900, vol. I, Hong Kong, 2018, no. 5.30).
A small but notable grouping of related paintings is known, though few are executed at this large scale, or with comparable detail in the surroundings and delicacy in the technique. Several place the figure of the mother in front of a window providing the viewer with a view of a busy harbor scene beyond. Although the visible geography has been helpful to scholars, who employ it to date these paintings to circa 1870, it may forsake some of the quiet intimacy of the scene between the new mother and her child. See Bourgeault-Horan Antiquarians, Portsmouth, 20 August 2017, lot 1510, sold $85,000 and Sotheby’s, New York, 15 September 2015, lot 221, sold $112,500. Also compare the example in the Peabody Essex Museum and the example illustrated by Patrick Conner, Paintings of the China Trade, The Sze Yuan Tang Collection of Historic Paintings, Hong Kong, 2013, p. 163, no. 150, and the painting discussed by Chan and Wan, gifted by Anthony J. Hardy to the Hong Kong Maritime Museum (accession no. HKMM2018.0001.0001). The present lot and above examples may have served as prototypes for a group of smaller, later or less sumptuous examples, echoing the composition but in a decidedly spartan setting, see the
five (two pairs and a single painting) sold Christie’s, London, 8 June 1999, lots 101-103, and a pair sold Christie’s, Hong Kong, 30 September 1992, lot 1910.
春风拂槛露华浓。
Clouds call to mind her robes, the flowers recall her face.
Spring breezes brush the railing, dew full on the blossoms.
– Li Bai (701 - 762)
In this extraordinary painting, the bolster pillow beneath the nursing mother’s head is inscribed with these opening lines of the Qing Ping Diao (Quiet, Peaceful Melody), a song composed by the great Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai in tribute to the extraordinary Yang Guifei, beloved consort of Emperor Xuanzong. Lady Yang, celebrated as one of the Four Great Beauties of ancient China, appears throughout the song amid natural and heavenly elements: flowing clouds, blossoming flowers, radiant dew and moonlight. The pairing of this poem alongside a tranquil breastfeeding scene is a true celebration of femininity.
Oil on canvas works such as the present lot are largely associated with items made for Western consumption, but the inscription on the bolster near her elbow suggests the possibility the painting may have been made for a Chinese audience. Although Libby Lai-Pik Chan and Nina Lai-Na Wan, discussing a closely related example, locates the origins of the composition in images of odalisques, the anonymous author of the present painting transforms the scene into one of quiet intimacy between a mother and her child evocative of Chinese values surrounding motherhood. In Confucian and traditional Chinese medical philosophies, the act breastfeeding was regarded as a natural and moral duty of mothers, associated not only with the nourishment of the child but also with the transmission of maternal virtue, love, and familial bonds. (For the ‘odalisque’ thesis, see L.L.P. Chan and N.L.N. Wan, eds., The Dragon and The Eagle: American Traders in China, A Century of Trade from 1784 to 1900, vol. I, Hong Kong, 2018, no. 5.30).
A small but notable grouping of related paintings is known, though few are executed at this large scale, or with comparable detail in the surroundings and delicacy in the technique. Several place the figure of the mother in front of a window providing the viewer with a view of a busy harbor scene beyond. Although the visible geography has been helpful to scholars, who employ it to date these paintings to circa 1870, it may forsake some of the quiet intimacy of the scene between the new mother and her child. See Bourgeault-Horan Antiquarians, Portsmouth, 20 August 2017, lot 1510, sold $85,000 and Sotheby’s, New York, 15 September 2015, lot 221, sold $112,500. Also compare the example in the Peabody Essex Museum and the example illustrated by Patrick Conner, Paintings of the China Trade, The Sze Yuan Tang Collection of Historic Paintings, Hong Kong, 2013, p. 163, no. 150, and the painting discussed by Chan and Wan, gifted by Anthony J. Hardy to the Hong Kong Maritime Museum (accession no. HKMM2018.0001.0001). The present lot and above examples may have served as prototypes for a group of smaller, later or less sumptuous examples, echoing the composition but in a decidedly spartan setting, see the
five (two pairs and a single painting) sold Christie’s, London, 8 June 1999, lots 101-103, and a pair sold Christie’s, Hong Kong, 30 September 1992, lot 1910.