Page 38 - Studio of the Clear Garden Chinese ceramics NYC Mar 2018

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A VERY RARE FAMILLE ROSE PURPLE-GROUND INGOT-SHAPED NARCISSUS TRAY
GUANGXU PERIOD (1875-1908)
The thick-walled tray is raised on six conical supports and decorated on the exterior in bright enamels on
a rich purple ground with three bees in fight amidst stems of yellow autumn kui (huangqiu kui), blue asters
and chrysanthemum, as well as inscribed below the rim with the characters, Dayazhai, beside the Tian
Di Yi Jia Chun iron-red seal mark. The fat rim is decorated in blue enamel with a band of key fret and the
interior is covered in turquoise enamel. The characters Yong Qing Chang Chun (‘Eternal Prosperity and
Enduring Spring’) are inscribed in iron red on the base.
8¡ in. (21.4 cm.), box

$20,000-30,000 (mark)

PROVENANCE
Ronald W. Longsdorf Collection; Christie’s Hong Kong, 3 December 2008, lot 2216.
The Studio of the Clear Garden.
The decoration on this narcissus tray is representative of autumn.
The original line drawing of this shape shown above a sketch of the same pattern is illustrated by Guo
Xingkuan and Wang Guangyao in Guanyang Yuci, Gugong bowuyan cang Qingdai zhici guanyang yu
Yuyao (Oficial Designs and Imperial Porcelain: The Palace Museum’s Collection of Oficial Porcelain
Designs and Porcelains from Imperial Kilns of the Qing Dynasty), Beijing, 2007, pp. 186-87, no. 43.
According to the note accompanying the sketch, four pairs of purple-ground and four pairs of pink-
ground trays of this shape and pattern were commissioned. Another Dayazhai narcissus tray of this
shape, but decorated with wisteria on a yellow ground, which is also illustrated in Guanyang Yuci, p. 178,
no. 38, was sold at Christie’s London, 3 November 2009, lot 222.
清光緒 紫地粉彩花卉圖銀錠式盆 《永慶長春》款

(another view)

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