Page 90 - Christies May 9, 2017 Kensington

THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN The poem on the bowl, Sanqing cha (The Purity Tea) was one of the Qianlong
Emperor’s favourites. It described the tea made from prunus, fnger citron,
88 and pine nut kernels, and extols the virtues of tea making. Each New Year the
emperor would hold a tea-drinking banquet and his guests would be invited
A PAIR OF INSCRIBED IRON-RED-DECORATED BOWLS to compose poetry. A bowl such as the present example would have been
QIANLONG BINGYIN CYCLICAL DATE IN IRON-RED, awarded to the best poet.
CORRESPONDING TO 1746 AND OF THE PERIOD
An identical bowl is in the collection of the National Palace Museum and
The exterior is inscribed in iron-red with a poem written in kaishu script, is illustrated in Emperor Qianlong’s Grand Cultural Enterprise, Taipei, 2002,
no. 51, another is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in The Life of
followed by a cyclical date, early-Spring of the bingyin year, and two iron-red Emperor Qianlong, Macao Museum of Art, Macao, 2002, no. 79. Three other
bowls of this design are illustrated and discussed by P. Lam in ‘Tang Yin
seals, Qian and Long, all between two ruyi-head bands. The interior of the bowl (1682-1756): The Imperial Factory Superintendent at Jingdezhen’, T.O.C.S ,
London, vol. 63, 1998-1999, p. 69, fg. 4.
is decorated with a medallion of pine, plum blossoms and fnger citron, below

two further bands of ruyi-heads.

4º in. (10.7 cm.) diam. (2)

£15,000-20,000 $19,000-25,000
€18,000-23,000

PROVENANCE See, also, a similar bowl sold at Sotheby’s, Hong Kong, 27 April 2003, lot

Collection of Alfred E. Hippisley (1848-1939). 30, and compare the current lot to a pair of bowls also Qianlong period but

EXHIBITED decorated with bamboo rather than prunus in the central roundel sold at

The Hippisley Collection of Chinese Porcelains, Smithsonian Institute, Christie’s Hong Kong, 28 April 1997, lot 790.
Washington. D.C., 1902, nos. 248 and 251.
清乾隆 1746年 礬紅「三清茶」碗一對 礬紅六字篆書款
LITERATURE
來源：英國 ALFRED E. HIPPISLEY 珍藏
Alfred E. Hippisley, A Sketch of the History of Ceramic Art in China. With a
Catalogue of the Hippisley Collection of Chinese Porcelains, Washington D.C., 著錄：ALFRED E. HIPPISLEY, A Sketch of the History of Ceramic Art
1890, no. 248 and 251. in China. With a Catalogue of the Hippisley Collection of Chinese
Porcelains, 華盛頓, 1890年, 第248及251號

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