A VERY RARE FAMILLE VERTE 'BIRTHDAY' PLATE

IMPERIAL STYLE IN THE DECORATIVE ARTS THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN

细节

A VERY RARE FAMILLE VERTE 'BIRTHDAY' PLATE
ENCIRCLED KANGXI SIX-CHARACTER MARK AND OF THE PERIOD (1662-1722)

Delicately enamelled on the medallion with a grasshopper above a beetle, both preoccupied on fruit bearing flowering branches, the everted rim pencilled in iron-red with floral blooms arranged on a honeycomb diaper-ground, evenly divided at the four cardinal points with archaistic seal script to read, Wan Shou Wu Jiang, 'Longevity without an end' (minor rim chip and frit restored)
9 7/8 in. (25.1 cm.) diam.

出版

A. du Boulay, Christie's Pictorial History of Chinese Ceramics, London, 1984, p. 227, col. pl. 2 (top left).

拍品专文

Previously sold, illustrated with a group of six Kangxi 'birthday' dishes, in our London Rooms, 12 December 1977, lot 198.

Only one other dish with this unusual 'insect' design appears to be published, in Porcelains from the Tianjin Municipal Museum, Hong Kong, 1993, pl. 133. Compare also a dish with 'geese' decorating the medallion from, the Jingguantang Collection, sold in these Rooms, 3 November 1996, lot 587. For a variation of the theme such as the eagle, bird-on-fruiting-branches and swimming mandarin ducks, see lot 554 for a further discussion on this group of 'birthday' plates that were made in celebration of the 60th birthday of the Emperor Kangxi in 1713.

A comparable dish enamelled with similar caricature-like grasshopper among flowers and ornamental rockwork is illustrated in Kangxi Porcelain Wares from the Shanghai Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1998, p. 187, no. 122.