Page 20 - 2020 September 22 Kangxi Porcelain Asia Week NYC

9/2/2020 Kangxi Porcelain – A Private Collection | Sotheby's

Kangxi Porcelain – A Private Collection
New York |22 Sep 2020 | 09:00 AM EDT

Lot 111

A RARE DOUCAI 'BIRTHDAY' DISH, KANGXI MARK AND PE RIOD
Estimate: 80,000 - 120,000 USD

A RARE DOUCAI 'BIRTHDAY' DISH
KANGXI MARK AND PERIOD
清康熙 鬥彩鶴壽延年圖盤 《大清康熙年製》款

the shallow sides resting on a straight foot, the center with a finely enameled peach enclosing a crane in flight, set against a large
underglaze-blue shou character, surrounded by interlocking stylized leafing lingzhi stems radiating through the cavetto,
framing alternating shou medallions and fruiting peach sprays at the rim, the exterior with three groups of lingzhi and bamboo
amid rockwork, the base with a six-character mark in underglaze blue, inscribed in three columns within a double circle.

Diameter 8¼ in., 21.1 cm

Catalogue Note
Vibrantly painted in the doucai palette, the motifs adorning this dish brim with auspicious meaning indicating it was clearly
intended as a birthday gift. During his six-decade-long reign, the Kangxi Emperor had refrained from organizing large birthday
celebrations, except on the occasion of his 60th birthday in 1713, and in anticipation of his 70th birthday in 1723. The former was a
truly grand national event which lasted weeks and involved numerous processions, performances and banquets, and the latter
would have been similarly magnificent had the Emperor not died unexpectedly a few months before. Porcelain wares were
produced specifically for these two occasions, and the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen began firing these wares years in advance.
Peter Y.K. Lam has recently attempted to identify porcelain produced for these two events and has suggested that dishes of the
present type were intended as gifts for the Emperor’s 70th birthday (Peter Y.K. Lam in “Myriad Longevity Without Boundaries.
Some Qing Imperial Birthday Ceramics from Hong Kong Collections”, Arts of Asia, October 2010, vol. 40, no. 5, pp 110-111). Lam

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