A FINE AND VERY RARE FAMILLE NOIRE GROUP OF TWO 'LAUGHING BOYS' on a flat base decorated with two ruyi-heads on a cracked-ice ground, one standing holding a peach in his raised right hand and wearing a black-ground jacket decorated with birds amongst prunus, the back with a phoenix roundel, beside a seated companion, also holding a peach and wearing a green jacket embellished with magnolia and a crane roundel, both naked from the waist down, their faces with a laughing expression (extremity restorations), Kangxi

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A FINE AND VERY RARE FAMILLE NOIRE GROUP OF TWO 'LAUGHING BOYS' on a flat base decorated with two ruyi-heads on a cracked-ice ground, one standing holding a peach in his raised right hand and wearing a black-ground jacket decorated with birds amongst prunus, the back with a phoenix roundel, beside a seated companion, also holding a peach and wearing a green jacket embellished with magnolia and a crane roundel, both naked from the waist down, their faces with a laughing expression (extremity restorations), Kangxi

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A FINE AND VERY RARE FAMILLE NOIRE GROUP OF TWO 'LAUGHING BOYS' on a flat base decorated with two ruyi-heads on a cracked-ice ground, one standing holding a peach in his raised right hand and wearing a black-ground jacket decorated with birds amongst prunus, the back with a phoenix roundel, beside a seated companion, also holding a peach and wearing a green jacket embellished with magnolia and a crane roundel, both naked from the waist down, their faces with a laughing expression (extremity restorations), Kangxi
22cm. high

Lot Essay

The only other published example of this splendid group of Kangxi porcelain enamelled 'on the biscuit' is illustrated in Fantasies of Chinese Art by Victor Rienacker, Country Life Annual 1956, fig.5, from the collection of the Hon. Mrs Basil Ionides, originally at Buxted Park, Sussex

For a group of figures with extremely similar faces and height dated to the same period in the Copeland Collection, which were previously in the George Eumorfopoulos Collection, see W. Sargent, op. cit., p.103, n.47. Cf. E. Gorer and J. Blacker, op. cit., pl.89, vol.I, and F. Partridge & Sons, op. cit., fig.53, for figures with very similar faces and expressions, as well as wearing the same style of tunics, dated to the same period

These laughing twins are the immortals Hehe Erxian who represent harmony and mirth as well as bestowing blessings on marriages. The word he is the homonym for 'union', while erxian means 'the two holy ones'. They actually represent the two famous poet-monks of the Tang dynasty, Hanshan and Shide. Cf. T. Bartholomew, op. cit., 'Motifs on Marriage and Children', for a further discussion of this theme

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