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Lot Essay
This finely potted bowl is decorated in a style that is typical of the refined doucai style found during the Yongzheng reign. The outlines of the design are rendered with a very fine brush in a clear, soft blue and the enamel colors are used with delicacy and restraint. The emblems of the Eight Daoist Immortals provide the decoration for the main band. Each is tied with a fluttering ribbon painted in two tones creating a sense of movement that is reminiscent of the fluttering scarves in Buddhist art of the Tang dynasty.
The Eight Daoist emblems represent the items carried by the Eight Daoist Immortals. In the same way that the figures of the Eight Daoist Immortals are often depicted accompanying the Star God of Longevity, Shoulao, the emblems of the immortals are accompanied on the interior of the current bowl by a spray of peaches, symbolizing Shoulao.
A pair of similar bowls, Yongzheng mark and period, formerly in the T.Y. Chao Collection, were included in the exhibition, Ch'ing Porcelain from the Wah Kwong Collection, Art Gallery of the Chinese University, Hong Kong, 1973, no. 89. A similar bowl is illustrated in The Tsui Museum of Art - Chinese Ceramics IV, Qing Ceramics, Hong Kong, 1995, pl. 139. See, also, the bowl sold at Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 31 October 2004, lot 108.
The Eight Daoist emblems represent the items carried by the Eight Daoist Immortals. In the same way that the figures of the Eight Daoist Immortals are often depicted accompanying the Star God of Longevity, Shoulao, the emblems of the immortals are accompanied on the interior of the current bowl by a spray of peaches, symbolizing Shoulao.
A pair of similar bowls, Yongzheng mark and period, formerly in the T.Y. Chao Collection, were included in the exhibition, Ch'ing Porcelain from the Wah Kwong Collection, Art Gallery of the Chinese University, Hong Kong, 1973, no. 89. A similar bowl is illustrated in The Tsui Museum of Art - Chinese Ceramics IV, Qing Ceramics, Hong Kong, 1995, pl. 139. See, also, the bowl sold at Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 31 October 2004, lot 108.