Lot 1589
1589
A RARE LARGE FAMILLE VERTE BALUSTER JAR
A RARE LARGE FAMILLE VERTE BALUSTER JAR
A RARE LARGE FAMILLE VERTE BALUSTER JAR
A RARE LARGE FAMILLE VERTE BALUSTER JAR
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PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF LENORA AND WALTER F. BROWN
A RARE LARGE FAMILLE VERTE BALUSTER JAR

KANGXI PERIOD (1662-1722)

Details
A RARE LARGE FAMILLE VERTE BALUSTER JAR
KANGXI PERIOD (1662-1722)
The jar is decorated with a continuous scene depicting a foreigner seated in a carriage with a Chinese lady, with foreign attendants and hunters wearing brightly colored striped uniforms in a rocky landscape, all beneath a band of beast-filled panels on a diaper ground on the neck.
18 in. (45 cm.) high
Provenance
Private collection, Europe.
Roger Keverne, London, 2012.
The Lenora and Walter F. Brown Collection, San Antonio, Texas.
Literature
Roger Keverne, Fine and Rare Chinese Works of Art and Ceramics - Summer Exhibition, London, 2012, no. 49.
Exhibited
London, Roger Keverne, Fine and Rare Chinese Works of Art and Ceramics - Summer Exhibition, 2012.

Brought to you by

Olivia Hamilton
Olivia Hamilton
212-636-2180

Lot Essay


The scene depicted on the current jar may represent an interpretation of the popular theme of Wenji gui Han (Lady Wenji’s Return to Han). Cai Wenji (c. AD 170-220), a poet and musician from the Eastern Han period, was married in AD 192 at age 16 and widowed shortly thereafter. In AD 194-5, she was captured by the Xiongnu during an invasion and taken back to their homelands in the north. During her captivity she was forced to marry Liu Bao, the Xiongnu chieftain, and bore him two sons. Some twelve years later, the warlord Cao Cao paid a high ransom in her deceased father’s name for her return to China where a further marriage was arranged for her. If indeed this is the theme represented here, then Cai Wenji is shown during her captivity, seated next to her Xiongnu husband Liu Bao in a horse-drawn cart accompanied attendants. The Xiongnu are depicted akin to Europeans, which may suggest the jar could be a special order made for the Western market.

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