Page 58 - Mounted Oriental Porcelain, The Getty Museum

J. L I D D E D B O W L

THE PORCELAIN: Chinese (Kangxi), 1662-1722, and Japanese (Arita), circa 1660
THE SILVER MOUNTS: French (Paris), 1722-27
HEIGHT: 8 in. (20.3 cm); DIAMETER: 9% in. (25.1 cm)
87.01.4

DESCRIPTION
The circular lidded bowl is composed of three pieces
of porcelain mounted with silver. The body is potted in
a fine light gray clay and covered with a white glaze.
The white porcelain is painted with cinnabar-red
overglaze enamel and gilded. The circular piece of por-
celain forming the top of the lid is divided into sixteen
panels that are alternatively painted with flowers and
grasses (fig. 7A). The underside is painted in red, green,
brown, and yellow with a flowering branch. It is encir-
cled by a green band inside a band of alternating sec-
tions of trellis pattern and cloud collars (fig. 75).
The main body of the lid is painted with the lower
remains of a band of banana plant. Below, a band of
"tortoiseshell" pattern is punctuated at the cardinal
points with four of the eight "precious things": the pearl,
the mirror, the artemesia leaf, and the musical stone.
A cloud collar design is painted around the shoul- FIG. 7 A
der of the bowl with the scrolling stems, leaves, buds,
and flowers of a stylized chrysanthemum. Floral vines
are painted at the cardinal points on the open field MARKS
of the belly. The painter's mark of two concentric circles are
The bowl is mounted with silver around the foot painted in underglaze blue on the underside of the bowl.
and lip and on the lid around the rim and the top. The lid Each silver mount is stamped with a dove (the Pari
is surmounted by a silver finial that takes the form of a discharge mark for small silver works used between
berry cluster in a six-leaf cup on a flat round base. It is se- May 6, 1722, and September 2, 1727, under the fermier
cured to the lid with a threaded bolt and a four-petaled Charles Cordier) (fig. jc}.
nut. The silver rim on the lip of the bowl is punctuated
with four flanges that repeat the shape of the cloud col- COMMENTARY
lar they overlay. The foot mount has a gadrooned band The central section of the lid has been cracked in
at its center. five places and the outer section of the lid in one place.
This type of cinnabar-red painted overglaze enamel
decoration came into use during the Ming dynasty
(1388-1644). Vessels decorated in this manner were

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