18TH CENTURY

A related, low shaped rectangular wood stand can be found in an eighteenth-century hand scroll painted by anonymous court painters entitled Pictures of Ancient Playthings, scroll 6, currently in the Percival David Foundation, London, and illustrated by E. Rawski and J. Rawson, China: The Three Emperors, 1662-1795, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2005, pp. 252-3, pl. 168, where it is shown displaying an archaic bronze ritual vessel (fangding). Another related example can be found in an anonymous court painting, Twelve Beauties at Leisure Painted for Prince Yinzhen, the Future Yongzheng Emperor, dating to the late Kangxi period (between 1709-1723), illustrated ibid., pp. 258-9, pl. 173, in which a court lady is seated observing two cats next to a bronze fangding. The presence of four circular depressions on the current example suggest that the stand may have once supported a similar object in bronze, jade, cloisonné enamel, or porcelain.