清道光

The decoration of a crane hovering over a pavilion in the sea carrying a chip refers to the rebus haiwu tianchou, 'adding a chip to the house in the sea', or may you live to a ripe old age. The scene is taken from the Chinese classic Dongpo zhilin, 'Writings by Dongpo', of the Northern Song scholar Su Shi (1037 -1101), telling the story of three sages comparing their ages. One of them said that whenever the sea turned into fields of mulberry or vice versa, he marked with a chip, by which houses of chips were kept. Hence the chip is a symbol for recording age and the motif conveys the blessing of longevity.

Examples of bowls of similar form and enamelled decoration, bearing the same hall mark are in the Beijing Palace Museum Collection, illustrated in Porcelains with Cloisonne Enamel Decoration and Famille Rose Decoration, The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1999, pp. 234-235, pls. 209-210. Also see another related example formerly in the Yangzhitang Collection sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 1 December 2010, lot 3211.