Page 121 - Bonhams Chinese Art London May 2013
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85 The cockerel, 公雞 gongji, symbolises a duke, 公 gong, and is also
A famille rose ruby-ground three-piece garniture an auspicious symbol for luck, 大吉 daji. A very similar vase with a
Yongzheng ruby ground and cockerels in the Wantage Collection is illustrated by
Comprising a pair of baluster vases and covers and a flaring gu vase, R.L.Hobson, Chinese Pottery and Porcelain, Vol.II, London, 1915, pl.121,
the vases each with two fruit-shaped cartouches on a ruby ground fig.3. See also a pair of baluster vases and covers in the Taft Collection
each enclosing a cockerel standing proudly on rockwork beside leafy illustrated by E.J.Sullivan (ed.), The Taft Museum: Its History and
peony and aster, above a leaf-shaped cartouche containing opening Collections, Vol. II, New York, 1995, p.679, nos.1931.178, 182.
buds, alternating with pairs of two crossing cartouches, the horizontal
fan-shaped cartouche with a scene of a boat on a river and the vertical Vases of this type were extremely popular with late 19th and early 20th
scroll-shaped cartouche with a long-beaked bird on a perched on a century collectors as they seemed at the time to epitomise the height
peony branch, the ruby ground scattered with yellow, white and blue of rich colourful pink enamelling at the earliest time this revolutionary
chrysanthemum blossoms, the covers with four floral lobed cartouches mineral combination was introduced to the Chinese palette. It is
beneath a lotus finial, the flaring gu vase similarly enamelled with therefore very interesting to record that a number of vases of this
cockerel, floral, landscape and bird cartouches, the three vessels with kind were part of the legendary Victorian collection formed by the
three related green-ground geometric bands, slightly differing in design. Conservative Member of Parliament Alfred Morrison, and displayed
The vases and covers overall 44.2cm (17 3/8in) high (5). at his imposing country house Fonthill in Wiltshire. Many of the finest
£20,000 - 25,000 pieces of 18th century porcelain in this collection are believed to have
HK$240,000 - 290,000 CNY190,000 - 240,000 been acquired from the Summer Palace artefacts brought back to Europe
after 1860. This therefore leads some specialists to believe that vases
清雍正 粉彩胭脂紅地開光花鳥雞紋蓋罐兩件及筒觚一件 of this kind are actually closer to Imperial taste than one might expect,
given their lack of a reign mark.
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