Page 94 - CHRISTIE'S Marchant Nine Decades of Chinese Art 09/14/17

MARCHANT: NINE DECADES IN CHINESE ART

742 A PEACHBLOOM-GLAZED SEAL PASTE Examples of peachbloom-glazed seal paste boxes and covers
BOX AND COVER, YINSE HE in museum collections include one in the Palace Museum,
Beijing, illustrated in Kangxi Yongzheng Qianlong, Hong
KANGXI SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE AND OF Kong, 1989, p. 141, col. pl. 124; and one as part of a
THE PERIOD (1662-1722) set in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, illustrated by
S. Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York,
The domed cover is covered on the exterior with a mottled 1975, pp. 200-201, pl. 138. Further examples in private
blush-pink glaze which deepens and then fades to a collections are illustrated by R. Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from
mushroom tone towards the rim, and has greyish mottling on the Meiyintang Collection, Vol. 2, London, 1994, p. 178,
one side. The box is covered with a similar glaze also paling at no. 819, and by J. Ayers, The Baur Collection, Geneva,
the rim. Chinese Ceramics, Vol. 3, Geneva, 1972, no. A 312.
2√ in. (7.3 cm.) diam.
A similar example from the Jingguantang Collection was
$50,000-70,000 sold as part of a complete set of the ba da ma at Christie’s
Hong Kong, 3 November 1996, lot 557, and one formerly
PROVENANCE in the collection of Mary Stillman Harkness (1874-1952)
and accessioned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in
Property from an Asian family collection; Christie’s Hong 1950 was sold at Christie’s New York, Collected in America:
Kong, 31 October 2000, lot 867. Chinese Ceramics from The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
15 September 2016, lot 917.
This type of seal paste box forms one of the ba da ma or
‘Eight Great Numbers’, a group of eight specifc vessels 清康熙 豇豆紅印泥盒 六字三行楷書款
covered in a distinctive peachbloom glaze. The glaze appears
to have been developed during the Kangxi period, and
is characterized by blushes of red against a soft pink base
color, sometimes with clear greenish or greyish mottled
areas, giving an impression of delicate blushing skin or fruit
ripening in the sun. This ‘blushing’ or ‘peachbloom’ effect
was very complex to produce, requiring colorants to be
blown onto a surface covered with transparent glaze, which
was then applied with an additional layer of transparent glaze
before being fred at high temperature.

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