QING DYNASTY, EARLY 19TH CENTURY, MADE BY YANG PENGNIAN AND INSCRIBED BY CHEN MANSHENG

Chen Hongshou (1768-1822), better known by his hao, Mansheng, was a native of Qiantang (present day Hangzhou) in Zhejiang province. He became involved in the production of Yixing wares when he was appointed magistrate of Liyang and took it upon himself to try and revive the flagging pottery industry by looking back to earlier masters of the art. According to T. Bartholomew, I-Hsing Ware, China Institute in America, 1977, p. 38, his appointment was from 1811-1817 and Liyang was a county north-west of Yixing. His official residence in Liyang was a mulberry tree with interlocking branches after which he named his studio. Chen Mansheng designed eighteen forms for the two leading potters of his time (Yang Pengnian and Shao Eruan) to make. These basic shapes are illustrated in the 1981 Hong Museum of Art Yixing Pottery exhibition catalogue, pp. 30-31, fig. 2 and present teapot relates closely to no. 4. It is noted that this shape is based on a shape created by Shi Dabin (1580-1650), the foremost potter of the late Wanli period, and this is confirmed by the inscription on the current teapot.

The maker of the current teapot, Yang Pengnian was a leading potter active during the Jiaqing/Daoguang periods, who worked closely with Chen Mansheng from 1811 onwards, making teapots that would then be inscribed by Chen Mansheng himself or noted artists and scholars of the period. For another teapot of this form made by Yang Pengnian and inscribed by Chen Masheng, cf. T. Bartholomew, op cit., 1977, p. 40, no. 17. Another, of different form, also by the same maker and inscribed by Chen Masheng is in the Palace Museum Collection, illustrated in Yixing Zisha Wares in the Palace Museum, Beijing, 2007, p. 109, no. 53.