Page 123 - A Re-examination of Late Qing Dynasty Porcelain, 1850-1920 THESIS

associated with Cixi: in this instance, the use of a flower that held auspicious meaning

painted onto an unpainted background. These paintings attributed to Cixi’s patronage

were fully discussed in the previous chapter. Cixi appropriated the styles of these

paintings and applied them to her porcelain, creating designs that contained powerful

flower images against colored grounds that demonstrated the brush skills associated with

traditional ink painting. A similar style was used during the Hongxian era, indicating a

continuation from the porcelain design of the empress dowager. One example found is a

small dish that depicts flowers in a famille rose palette (Figure 35). 151 The plate has the

Jurentang mark associated with the reign of the Hongxian Emperor. The palette of

famille rose remains a constant color scheme carried from the late Qing era into the

Hongxian period that allowed for the soft washes of color that were previously associated

with the delicate elements favored by Cixi. The flowers decorating the dish are a rose

and a hibiscus. When these flowers are depicted together, the meaning of the rose shifts,

incorporating aspects of the hibiscus. The hibiscus translates to mufurong 木芙蓉, and

the term becomes a pun for the words fu 富 and rong 榮, meaning “wealth and glory.” 152

Together the terms for the flowers can be interpreted as meaning “may wealth and glory

be yours throughout the four seasons,” or “may you possess wealth, glory and longevity.”

The Hongxian plate suggests continuity between Cixi’s reign and the brief Hongxian era.

The similarities existing between these monarchs substantiates that both individuals

strove for a high-caliber porcelain that exhibited painterly effects. The motifs

appropriated from Cixi’s style utilizing a bird within a floral motif most closely relate to

151 Avitabile, From the Dragon’s Treasure: Chinese Porcelain from the Nineteenth and Twentieth
Centuries in the Weishaupt Collection, 132.
152 Bartholomew, Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art, 148.

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