Lot Essay
Previously sold Hong Kong, 26 November 1980, lot 379.
One of the achievements for which the famous Imperial kiln director, Tang Ying is celebrated is his sucess in imitating ancient wares. This imitation took many forms, and one of them was the adoption of earlier shapes, that were then decorated with designs which would not have been used in the early period. One such example is the current covered bowl.
The shape of this bowl was popular in the early 15th century, when the cover was topped by a boss-like finial. Such bowls were usually decorated in underglaze-blue, sometimes with the addition of underglaze copper-red or overglaze iron-red. Almost without exception they were decorated with dragons and waves. The Yongzheng bowl has a completely different theme for its decoration, has a more subtantial and elaborate finial on the cover, and has its raised bands slightly lower down the vessel. This latter change is undoubtedly to allow a wider band offering more scope for decoration.
The decoration on this bowl is a combination of old and new. The doucai technique had been popular in the Chenghua reign of the 15th century, but the style in which is painted on this bowl is the new, more delicate and more detailed style developed in the late Kangxi and early Yongzheng reigns. The reign mark also points to an early date of manufacture in the Yongzheng period, but the overall scheme and use of space on the bowl is in keeping with that developed in the Yongzheng period, but the inclusion of amusing ladybirds recalls those seen on famille verte porcelains in the Kangxi reign. Compare also the painting style of the butterflies to a Kangxi dish in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated in Chugoku Toji Zhenshu, vol. 21, no. 64, and the reeds on a period bowl in the same collection, illustrated loc. cit., no. 74. This is very rare bowl, which provides wonderful insights into the development of styles in Chinese porcelain.
A nearly identical covered bowl is in the Palace Museum Collection, Beijing, illustrated in Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, 1989, p. 200, pl. 29, while another from the W. G. Gulland Bequest is illustrated by J. Ayers, Far Eastern Ceramics in the Victoria and Albert Museum, col. pl. 62.
(US$282,000-320,000)
One of the achievements for which the famous Imperial kiln director, Tang Ying is celebrated is his sucess in imitating ancient wares. This imitation took many forms, and one of them was the adoption of earlier shapes, that were then decorated with designs which would not have been used in the early period. One such example is the current covered bowl.
The shape of this bowl was popular in the early 15th century, when the cover was topped by a boss-like finial. Such bowls were usually decorated in underglaze-blue, sometimes with the addition of underglaze copper-red or overglaze iron-red. Almost without exception they were decorated with dragons and waves. The Yongzheng bowl has a completely different theme for its decoration, has a more subtantial and elaborate finial on the cover, and has its raised bands slightly lower down the vessel. This latter change is undoubtedly to allow a wider band offering more scope for decoration.
The decoration on this bowl is a combination of old and new. The doucai technique had been popular in the Chenghua reign of the 15th century, but the style in which is painted on this bowl is the new, more delicate and more detailed style developed in the late Kangxi and early Yongzheng reigns. The reign mark also points to an early date of manufacture in the Yongzheng period, but the overall scheme and use of space on the bowl is in keeping with that developed in the Yongzheng period, but the inclusion of amusing ladybirds recalls those seen on famille verte porcelains in the Kangxi reign. Compare also the painting style of the butterflies to a Kangxi dish in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated in Chugoku Toji Zhenshu, vol. 21, no. 64, and the reeds on a period bowl in the same collection, illustrated loc. cit., no. 74. This is very rare bowl, which provides wonderful insights into the development of styles in Chinese porcelain.
A nearly identical covered bowl is in the Palace Museum Collection, Beijing, illustrated in Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, 1989, p. 200, pl. 29, while another from the W. G. Gulland Bequest is illustrated by J. Ayers, Far Eastern Ceramics in the Victoria and Albert Museum, col. pl. 62.
(US$282,000-320,000)