Page 35 - Christies Asia Week 2015 Chinese Works of Art

PROPERTY FROM THE FAMILY OF K’UNG HSIANG-HSI

2025
A VERY RARE DOUCAI AND FAMILLE ROSE ‘SANDUO’ BOWL
YONGZHENG SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE WITHIN A DOUBLE CIRCLE AND OF THE PERIOD
(1723-1735)

With rounded sides that rise to the gentle everted rim, the bowl is delicately decorated on the
exterior in underglaze-blue depicting three fruiting and fowering sprays of pomegranate, lychee,
and fnger citron, to form the sanduo (Three Abundances). The interior medallion has a leafy cluster
of two peaches in shaded apple-green and iron-red, within double lines repeated below the rim.
6º in. (15.9 cm.) diam.

$5,000-7,000 (mark)

PROVENANCE: 33

The K’ung Hsiang-Hsi (Kong Xiangxi, 1881- 1967) Collection, New York, and thence by descent
within the family.

Yongzheng-marked bowls of this pattern are extremely rare and very few examples are known. A virtually
identical bowl, also from the K’ung Hsiang-Hsi Collection, was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 3 June 2015,
lot 3109. Other examples include a pair sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 15 May 1990, lot 286; another pair
from the collection of S. C. Davis (1871-1940), sold separately at Sotheby’s New York, the frst bowl sold on
27 November 1990, lot 190, and the other, sold 26 November 1991, lot 356; and a pair sold at Christie’s
Hong Kong, 29 May 2007, lot 1366. It is interesting to note the unusual stippling effect of the iron red
in the portrayal of the ripened peaches on the interior. This technique probably started in the late Kangxi
period, and can been seen on the peaches of a Kangxi-marked doucai bowl from the Palace Museum,
Beijing, illustrated in Qingdai Yuyao Ciqi, Beijing, 2005, p. 126, no. 32. During the Yongzheng period, the
doucai technique was further enhanced with the addition of the famille rose enamels, enriching the color
combinations and texture of the decoration, as exemplifed on the current bowl.

清雍正 鬥彩及粉彩三多紋盌 雙圈六字楷書款