Page 68 - Reginald and Lena Palmer Collection EXHIBITION, Bonhams London Oct 25 to November 2 2021

Consideration of the two ‘birthday plates’ in Bonhams’ Exhibition
suggests that there is an appropriate but subtle reference either to
‘fruitfulness’, ripeness and fullness, or to incipient decay, in many,
and possibly all, of the designs, which has not hitherto been fully
recognised. This is particularly apparent in those scenes where either
fruit or foliage are depicted. Where birds are perched on branches,
the leaves and fruit suspended for example from a leafy branch
appear to be of unusually large size in proportion to the bird. In the
case of leaves and grasses, there seems to be a constant theme that
some edges of the respective leaf or grass are often very carefully
and deliberately tinged with a brownish edge, suggesting that it is
past its Summer prime.

It is possible that when preparations were being made to commission
this unique set of special plates, Imperial Court artists may have
been instructed to produce a series of paintings which in a literary
and poetic manner captured the essence of a sixtieth birthday; and
this could often mean a reference to autumnal conditions, whether in
the depiction of lush, ripe, large fruit, or leafy grasses whose tips are
tinged with the first suggestion of organic decay, as the year wanes
after the symbolic peak of the late Summer harvest months. This can
most clearly be appreciated in the ‘birthday’ plate in the Sir Percival
David collection, decorated with a pair of Mandarin ducks swimming
in a large lotus pond; the ducks a conventional reference to marital
harmony, but the lotus leaves all heavily and deliberately edged with
brown decay; see S.Pierson, Designs as Signs: Decoration and
Chinese Ceramics, London, 2001, p.16, pl.5.

The mark of a person of feeling in the late Ming and Qing dynasties
was a poignant awareness of the transience of the phenomenal world,
embodied alike in the changing seasons and in the shifting fortunes
of human life. This crucial concept forms the locus where the stern
Buddhist doctrine of impermanence was softened by the aesthetics of
The Kangxi Emperor; image courtesy of the Palace deep responsiveness to the world. Poetry and painting (including those
Museum, Beijing on ceramics), long a key marker of a cultured person, drew much of its
power from this awareness, and both the painter and viewer could feel
that they were savouring an essential Buddhist truth through a painting
of flowers and decaying leaves that evoked sorrow over ephemeral
‘Birthday’ plates inscribed in the rim border with ‘wanshou wujiang’, beauty. Certainly, the completion of the sexagenary cycle would justify
‘Endless Longevity without Limit’, a phrase reserved for the Emperor, an autumnal theme running through the entire set.
are said to have been made in celebration of the sixtieth birthday of
the Kangxi Emperor in 1713. In China, time was recorded using a Confucian precepts regarding propriety and respect for the elderly
sexagenary cycle. The completion of sixty years in one’s life therefore, would also have dictated the colours being used. It is notable, that
was considered to be an especially significant event. ‘Birthday’ plates the colour palette on these ‘birthday’ plates is subdued and heavily
thus symbolise the Confucian tenets of Chinese culture which call for focused on pale iron-red, and two tones of green; pale and dark,
respect for the elderly. essentially Autumnal colours. Brighter or more flamboyant enamel
colours from the Kangxi-period repertory such as aubergine and blue
So-called ‘thousand old men banquets’ (qian sou yan 千叟宴) were are largely absent.
held in the Imperial palace in Beijing, and - as the name suggests -
over one thousand elderly guests over the age of 65 were invited from See a nearly identical dish of similar size (14.4cm diam.) with the same
all over China to attend. The first of these banquets was held in the design, Kangxi six-character mark and of the period, in the Museum
Garden of Joyous Spring in 1713 to celebrate the Kangxi Emperor’s of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics:
sixtieth birthday, and another was held for his seventieth birthday in the The World’s Great Collections, vol.8, Tokyo, 1982, no.60.
Palace of Heavenly Purity.

66 | BONHAMS