CHINE, DYNASTIE QING, ÉPOQUE KANGXI (1662-1722)

Our current jar is celebrated for its vivid underglaze-blue and copper red painting depicting dramatic mountain landscapes. One of the foremost developments of this new ‘literati’ style was the continuous landscape in a restricted palette, designed in direct imitation of classical scroll painting. The mountain landscape had long enjoyed particular significance as a religious symbol, and in the mid-seventeenth century, the mountain also held cultural resonance for the scholar-official, representing an ideal retreat to a peaceful sanctuary away from political turmoil and any unwelcome call to official duties from a new and foreign power. The success of this innovative style is clear from its continuation into the Kangxi period, when the freshness of the design was complemented by impeccable technique. The combination of copper-red and underglaze cobalt-blue required extreme precision in the firing process and it is not surprising that there is a great deal of variation in the successfulness of the copper-red colour, while our present jar clearly shows sharpness in the cobalt-blue painting while also achieving a very pleasing rich raspberry-red in the copper-red details.