Page 90 - CHRISTIE'S Marchant Nine Decades of Chinese Art 09/14/17

MARCHANT: NINE DECADES IN CHINESE ART Such costly vases appealed to the very highest level
of European society in the 18th century: see, for
(another view) example, two vases in the Porzellansummlung
88 of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden,
illustrated by E. Ströber, ‘La maladie de porcelaine...’
East Asian Porcelain from the Collection of Augustus the
Strong, Berlin, 2001, no. 33, pp. 80-81, where the
author notes that “These splendid and extremely
rare vases are among the most superior porcelains
of the Kangxi period… as a result of the plentiful
use of gold, the garden setting, the furniture and the
plants exuded a highly refned palace atmosphere”.
Another similar vase in the Chinese Museum at
Fontainebleau, established by Empress Eugénie in
1863, is shown in the opulent room known as “le
Musée Chinois”, illustrated by C. Samoyault-Verlet,
Le Musée chinois de L’impératrice Eugénie, 1994,
pp. 24-25, fg. 17.

However, the aristocratic appeal of such vases
appears to have been intended not only for the
export market, but perhaps even primarily for the
Chinese domestic market, whose appreciation of
the symbolism of the vases would have been so
much deeper. The scenes typically present an
idealized family presented in a happy and relaxed
domestic environment, blessed with auspicious
details such as the crane and the lotus which confrm
the moral rectitude of the household. The family
members appear well-structured along Confucian
principles: the pater familias sits in a central position,
two women are contentedly displaying their
educational attainments through their prowess at
weiqi, while a third takes a supervisory position
overlooking the boys playing, including one older
boy caring for his sobbing younger brother. On
many of these types of vases, the boys are playing
popular games such as catching a helmet or riding
a toy horse, and the present example appears to be
particularly unusual in depicting a group of boys in
a display of complex acrobatics.

A series of six similar rouleau vases (including one
also decorated with underglaze blue) from the
collection of J. T. Tai, sold at Sotheby’s New York,
Informing the Eye of the Collector: Chinese Ceramics and
Works of Art from J. T. Tai & Co., 22 March 2011,
lots 100-103.