Page 372 - 2019 September 13th Christie's New York Important Chinese Works of Art

PROPERTY OF A DISTINGUISHED NEW YORK FAMILY

1134
A VERY RARE AND FINELY ENAMELED FAMILLE ROSE
MILLE FLEURS LANTERN VASE
JIAQING IRON-RED SIX-CHARACTER SEAL MARK AND OF THE
PERIOD (1796-1820)
The tapering cylindrical body inverted trumpet-necked vase below the sloping is illustrated by S. W. Bushell, Oriental Ceramic Art, London, 1981 edition
shoulder, is superbly enameled overall with an abundance of naturalistically (reprint of the ten-volume 1896 edition), p. 214, fgure 279. Bushell noted
rendered fowers and leaves, the wide variety of foral species including lotus, that the fowers on the vase were “... painted in natural colors, so that each
peony, prunus, chrysanthemum, rose, aster, dahlia, orchid, morning glory, species may be recognized at a glance by one familiar with the garden
hydrangea and lingzhi, with gilt borders encircling the mouth rim and above the fora of China. Among them may be distinguished peonies of several kinds,
foot, the interior and base with turquoise enamel. lotus, chrysanthemum, magnolia, roses, hibiscus (both pink and yellow),
orchids, iris, lilies (scarlet and white), asters, hydrangea, wisteria, dielytra,
13 º in. (33.6 cm.) high
pomegranate, begonia, narcissus, convolvulus, syringa (white and lilac), Pyrus
$300,000-500,000 japonica (hai-t’ang) and double peach, Olea fragrans, cockscomb, etc.”
The mille feurs design — in a somewhat paler famille rose palette, and in
a slightly more open format where white background is visible between
PROVENANCE
In the current family’s collection before 1980, and thence by descent. the fowers and leaves, and without iron-red — frst appears during the
Yongzheng period (1723-1735), as represented by a small bowl in the Qing
This superb vase is a tour de force of the decorator’s art and would have been Court Collection, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the
extremely time-consuming to produce, requiring a painter of exceptional Palace Museum - 39 - Porcelains with Cloisonné Enamel Decoration and
skill. Even with the resources available to the Qing emperors, it is not Famille Rose Decoration, Hong Kong, 1999, p. 18, no. 15. Another similar
surprising that very few pieces decorated with this complex design were Yongzheng-marked bowl, formerly in the Edward T. Chow Collection, is
made, and only a handful have survived. The dense arrangement of various illustrated by M. Beurdeley and G. Raindre in Qing Porcelain - Famille Verte,
fowers decorating this vase is known as wanhuajin (myriad fower brocade), Famille Rose, London, 1987, p. 102, pl. 146. Two other similar bowls have been
as well as baihuadi (ground of one hundred fowers), and, according to T. T. sold at Christie’s, one in Hong Kong, 28 October 2002, lot 606, and one in
Bartholomew in Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art, Asian Art Museum of San New York, 15 September 2009, lot 371. This same design continued into the
Francisco, 2006, p. 146, during the Qing dynasty the design conveyed the Qianlong period as seen on a bowl from the Robert Chang Collection sold at
hope that the Qing dynasty “would last as long as fowers continue to bloom.” Christie’s Hong Kong, 31 October 2000, lot 811, that has a Cai Xiu Tang zhi
mark in blue enamel.
A Qianlong-marked double-gourd vase with similar mille feurs decoration
During the Qianlong period a variation of this design appeared, with the
design becoming more dense, allowing no visible white space between the
fowers and leaves. The famille rose palette also became richer and with
more realistic shading of the enamels, as well as with the addition of iron-red.
This version of the pattern is well represented by a large Qianlong-marked
vase in the Musée Guimet, illustrated by Beurdeley and Raindre, op. cit., pp.
118-19, pls. 164 and 165. Another well-known Qianlong-marked example is
the bottle vase in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, illustrated by
He Li in Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1996, p. 307, no. 664. See, also, the
double-gourd vase decorated with this design sold at Christie’s London, 11
November 2003, lot 94.
This version of the design, with its rich interweaving of the fowers to form
a harmonious overall pattern, continued to be admired during the reign of
the Jiaqing emperor. A fne example of this is the Jiaqing-marked vase in the
Shanghai Museum illustrated in Zhongguo taoci quanji, vol. 21, Shanghai,
1981, pl. 144. A pair of cups with this design and iron-red Jiaqing marks from
the Edward T. Chow Collection was illustrated by C. and M. Beurdeley in La
Ceramique Chinoise, Fribourg, 1974, no. 151, and later sold at Sotheby’s Hong
Kong, The Edward T. Chow Collection, Part One, 25 November 1989, lot 171,
and again at Christie’s Hong Kong, 29-30 April 2002, lot 708. Another pair
of similar cups was sold at Christie’s New York, 21 September 2004, lot 343,
and a single cup at Christie’s Hong Kong, 27 May 2008, lot 1751.
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