Page 124 - CHRISTIE'S Marchant Nine Decades of Chinese Art 09/14/17

MARCHANT: NINE DECADES IN CHINESE ART

750 A VERY RARE FAMILLE ROSE
‘MAGPIE’ BOWL
The delicacy of the enameling style and colors on the
DAOGUANG SIX-CHARACTER SEAL MARK IN UNDERGLAZE present bowl can be related to Yongzheng and Qianlong
BLUE AND OF THE PERIOD (1821-1850) famille rose wares. Compare, for example, a Yongzheng-
marked bowl decorated with a related design of magpies
The bowl is decorated on the exterior with ten black and with prunus from the Chinese National Collection
white magpies perched in pairs on branches beside fowering illustrated by S. Jenyns, Later Chinese Porcelain, London,
tree peony, with a further magpie on the ground and a twelfth 1951, pl. LI, no. 2, and a Qianlong-marked bowl in the
magpie in fight. Percival David Collection of Chinese Art, illustrated in
5¡ in. (13.7 cm.) diam. Oriental Ceramics, The World’s Great Collections, vol. 6,
Tokyo, 1982, no. 273.
$35,000-50,000
A Daoguang-marked bowl, decorated with similar delicacy
PROVENANCE with a pair of birds perched on rockwork amid fowers
including peony and probably prunus, is illustrated by H.
Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 15 May 1990, lot 251. van Oort, Chinese Porcelain of the 19th and 20th centuries, The
S. Marchant & Son, London, 1991. Netherlands, 1977, p. 23, pl. 12. A related Guangxu-marked
Private collection, Europe. dish with two pairs of magpies and prunus branches in the
Kwan Collection is illustrated in Imperial Porcelain of the Late
LITERATURE Qing, Hong Kong, 1983, p. 118, no. 118.

S. Marchant & Son, Exhibition of Nineteenth Century Mark and 清道光 粉彩喜鵲牡丹紋盌 六字篆書款
Period Porcelain, 1991, p. 51, no. 50.

The distinctive black and white magpie is an auspicious
bird, whose name in Chinese, xique, is a pun for happiness,
xi. Magpies were also regarded as birds of prophecy,
foretelling the arrival of guests. The birds are frequently
depicted among prunus blossoms, but the present decoration
with wutong branches is very unusual. Since the wutong
tree signifes ‘together’, tong, the combination of magpies
and wutong can be seen as a wedding motif representing
‘happiness together’.

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