Page 140 - Bonhams Chinese Art London May 2013
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9A8p*air of Dayazhai yellow-ground grisaille-decorated cylindrical vases The mark Dayazhai (Studio of the Greater Odes) has been associated with the
Dowager Empress Cixi. Although no such hall has been identified, a wooden
Guangxu, Dayazhai three-character marks and Yong qing chang chun framed plaque has been found in the Imperial workshops, bearing the
four-character marks characters Dayazhai and with one of two seals reading Tiandi Yijia Chun: see
Each vase delicately enamelled in mirror image with a red-tongued bird Guo Xingkuan and Wang Guangyao, Guanyang Yuci, Beijing, 2007, pp.145-
perched on a gnarled branch entwined with tendrils and issuing heavy 147. According to the authors, in the 12th year of Tongzhi (1873) work began
sprays of grisaille wisteria surrounding the three-character mark Dayazhai on the restoration of the Yuanming Yuan, and by 1874, the interior of the
enamelled in iron-red within a border of two five-clawed dragons pursuing a Tiandi Yijia Chun would have been in need of furnishing.
flaming pearl, a band of stiff lappets at the foot and ruyi-head at the rim, the Rosemary Scott suggests in her article For Her Majesty’s Pleasure - Dayazhai
underside with the iron-red four-character mark Yong qing chang chun. Porcelain, Christie’s Hong Kong, 3 December 2008, p.23, that the new-style
Each 33.7cm (13¼in) high (2). porcelains were not produced until the Guangxu reign, and by the second
£20,000 - 30,000 year of Guangxu, 4,922 porcelains had been produced bearing both Dayazhai
HK$240,000 - 350,000 CNY190,000 - 280,000 and Tiandi Yijia Chun marks. As the restoration of the Yuanming Yuan had
清光緒 黃地墨彩花鳥紋筒式瓶一對 礬紅「大雅齋、永慶長春」楷書款 been halted for economic reasons, the vessels would have been delivered to
Provenance: a European private collection the Forbidden City.
來源：歐洲私人收藏 The ground colour yellow, as on this present lot, is probably the rarest to find
on Dayazhai ceramics, because of the long-established Imperial connotation
of using yellow on objects and textiles associated with an Emperor or Empress.
The design of birds perched on wisteria, together with the mark Yong qing
chang chun, can be seen on a fish bowl illustrated by Guo Xingkuan and
Wang Guangyao, ibid.p.207.
Compare also a pair of yellow-ground fishbowls with Dayazhai marks sold in
these rooms, 8 November 2012, lot 110.
136 | Bonhams
