SHUNZHI PERIOD, CIRCA 1645-1660

Dr. Julia Curtis notes in the above listed exhibition catalogue that the combination of the four flowers depicted in the panels on this vase form the rebus “Wealth and rank in the Jade Hall” (yu tang fu gui).(Shunzhi Porcelain: Treasures from an Unknown Reign, 1644-1661, Alexandria, VA, 2002, p. 142) She adds that the flowers are “a reference to the Hanlin Academy, an official body in Beijing open only to high-ranking scholar-officials; and the chrysanthemum, emblem of autumn, is associated with Tao Qian (Tao Yuanming; 365-427), who, following family tradition, held several official posts before retiring from the civil service to follow his true vocation, poetry. The floral decoration on this rolwagen reveals a preoccupation with scholarly concerns that animated the scholar-gentry and affluent merchants in the seventeenth century. These two groups composed the consumers of porcelains in the Shunzhi emperor’s reign.”