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Lot Essay
In early 1974, shortly before his death, Ye Bengqi admitted in an interview with Hugh Moss to producing perhaps thirty to forty copies of Imperial Palace enamels between about 1925 and 1940; he also identified a number of published and photographed works shown to him at the time as his own. Ye's copies are so impressive, that for half a century they convinced experts all over the world that they were genuine Qianlong products; and conversely, genuine examples, some of which are not as technically proficient, were subsequently questioned. Today Ye's works are treated as masterpieces in their own right. Although Ye did no enameling in the 1940s and the early 1950s, he took up the art again in the late 1950s in order to teach his star pupil Wang Xisan and produced a small number of bottles as demonstration pieces. Since they no longer needed to be exact copies of Imperial originals, these few later works are often stylistically more intriguing.
For a lengthy discussion of enameled wares produced by the Ye family in Beijing, see H. Moss, "The Apricot Grove Studio, Part III: Enameled Glass Wares," JICSBS, Autumn 1985, pp. 116-30, where similar examples are illustrated. See also, Moss, Graham and Tsang, The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle. The J & J Collection, no. 205 for a discussion of Ye Bengqi's talents as a copyist. For more recent updates on Ye's works, see also Hugh Moss, "Mysteries of the Ancient Moon," JICSBS, Spring 2006.
For a lengthy discussion of enameled wares produced by the Ye family in Beijing, see H. Moss, "The Apricot Grove Studio, Part III: Enameled Glass Wares," JICSBS, Autumn 1985, pp. 116-30, where similar examples are illustrated. See also, Moss, Graham and Tsang, The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle. The J & J Collection, no. 205 for a discussion of Ye Bengqi's talents as a copyist. For more recent updates on Ye's works, see also Hugh Moss, "Mysteries of the Ancient Moon," JICSBS, Spring 2006.