A RARE PAIR OF MASSIVE CANTON ENAMEL CHARGERS

Details

A RARE PAIR OF MASSIVE CANTON ENAMEL CHARGERS
QIANLONG

Each painted in a famille rose palette with women and a group of boys at play in a terraced garden, two boys fighting, one climbing a tree, one riding a hobby horse, one reading, another being offered a peach by one of the women and two watching ducks swimming in a lotus pond in the foreground, the exterior decorated in blue with various flowers issuing from rocks, and the base of each painted in black calligraphy with a lengthy inscription with two seals in ruby red, chips to enamel, some restoration--30in. (76.2cm.) diam. (2)

Provenance

One: Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Robert W. DeForest, New York
J.A. Lloyd Hyde
Eugene O. Perkins Collection and subsequently sold in these rooms May 30, 1991, lot 66

Literature

Exhibited

New York, The China Institute in America, Chinese Painted Enamels from Private and Museum Collections, October 23, 1969-February 1, 1970, Catalogue, illus. front cover, back cover and pl. 35

Further details

See illustration of two views

Lot Essay

The lengthy inscription on the back of one of the dishes, translated on pages 28 and 29 of the Catalogue for the above mentioned exhibition, is a poem by Chun Kung-Yin, one of the three great Guangdong poets of the Qing Dynasty, and is taken from a collection of his works entitled, Tou Lo Tang

A square Canton enamel tray, also painted on the back with a lengthy calligraphic inscription dated the jiwei year, corresponding to 1799, was included in the exhibition, The Minor Arts of China III, Spink & Son Ltd, 1987, Catalogue no. 109

Compare, also, the charger of slightly larger size (34in.) with a different scene of ladies and children in a garden and also with a poem on the reverse sold Christie's South Kensington, July 15, 1993, lot 200