KANGXI SIX-CHARACTER MARKS WITHIN DOUBLE CIRCLES AND OF THE PERIOD (1662-1722)

Details

A PAIR OF FAMILLE VERTE SMALL DISHES
KANGXI SIX-CHARACTER MARKS WITHIN DOUBLE CIRCLES AND OF THE PERIOD (1662-1722)
Of saucer shape and with steeply sloping short sides, brightly enamelled and gilt with two scenes from The Water Margin, each dish with three different figures, on one a master in conversation with two halberd-bearers, on the other a warrior wearing armour flanked by two attendant figures, the reverse of each under a pale turquoise-green glaze pooling to a slightly darker colour below the rim and above the foot
6 7/8 in. (17.4 cm.) diam. (2)

Provenance

Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Clark, no. 8172.

Exhibited

Enamelled Polychrome Porcelain of the Manchu Dynasty, Oriental Ceramic Society, London, 1951, nos. 124 and 125.
One dish also: The Arts of the Ch'ing Dynasty, The Arts Council of Great Britain and The Oriental Ceramics Society, London, 26 May - 2 July 1964, no. 168

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

Sale room notice

Please note that one of the dishes has two rim cracks which have been restored.

Lot Essay

In the Victoria and Albert Museum there is a set of small dishes also depicting heros from the novel Shuihu zhuan ('The Water Margin') and, as in the present lot, the dishes have no borders or landscape; Rose Kerr illustrates one of these dishes in Chinese Ceramics, Porcelain of the Qing Dynasty 1644-1911, London, 1986, no. 81, pp. 102 and 103, and explains that these scenes are taken from the famous 1657 edition of the book illustrated by Chen Hongshou, who in the 1640s designed a set of forty playing cards depicting similar scenes.

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