A FINE FAMILLE ROSE RUBY-BACK EGGSHELL SEVEN-BORDERED SOUP-PLATE

YONGZHENG

Details
A FINE FAMILLE ROSE RUBY-BACK EGGSHELL SEVEN-BORDERED SOUP-PLATE
yongzheng
Finely enamelled and gilt to the centre with a leaf-shaped panel enclosing a young lady dressed in embroidered flowing garments, two boys at her side, one holding a lotus blossom, the other a ruyi sceptre, beside a bamboo table with scholars' items, garden seat and large vase, all reserved on a gilt ground with scrolling- flower meander, the well and rim with seven intricately decorated borders with variously patterned grounds reserving floral and mythical beast medallions, the reverse with a finely mottled ruby-ground enamel, minute rim flake
8.3/8 in. (21.2 cm.) diam.
Provenance
David Currie

Lot Essay

See W. B. Honey, Guide to the Later Chinese Porcelain, London, 1927, pl.88, for the almost identical plate in the Salting Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and p.53, where the author says the border design has "an effect of almost bewildering intricacy ... such a plate ... is a masterpiece, and shows an admirable fluency of line. These profuse but finely articulated designs reveal qualities of art of no mean order ...." Other examples, very similar to the present lot are illustrated by D. S. Howard and J. Ayers, op.cit., 1978, vol.I, colour pl.149, p.163; by R. L. Hobson, The Later Ceramic Wares of China, London, 1925, pl.LVI, fig.1 for the plate in the collection of Capt. A. T. Warre; by the same author, Chinese Pottery and Porcelain, New York and London, 1915, vol.II, pl.119, fig.1 for the British Museum example; by G. Williamson, op.cit., 1970, pl.LXII, top right, for the Grandidier example; by Edgar Gorer and J. F. Blacker, Chinese Porcelain and Hard Stones, London, 1911, pl.223 for the plate in the Clive Kenrick Collection; and in Sekai Toji Zenshu, vol.12, p.181, fig.39.

Very similar plates have been sold in these Rooms: 28 June 1934, lot 66; 12 July 1945, lot 79, property of the late R.W.M. Walker; 6 June 1956, lot 101, property of Lt.Col. A. Heywood-Lonsdale; 29 June 1964, lot 164, property of Mrs. Henrietta Duits; and 13 December 1976, lot 68, also illustrated by A. du Boulay, op.cit., 1984, p.264, fig.7.

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