Page 228 - Bonhams May 16, 2019 London Asian Art

250
A RARE POLYCHROME CRAB TUREEN AND COVER
Qianlong/Jiaqing
Delicately and realistically modelled crouching with four legs on each
side of the body, the cover modeled as the carapace with protuberant
and freely-moving eyes and surmounted by a frog-shaped knop, all
supported and fixed on a lotus-leaf stand incised with veins and with
rolled edges.
29.2cm (11 1/2in) wide. (2).
£20,000 - 30,000
CNY180,000 - 260,000
清乾隆/嘉慶 粉彩螃蟹形有蓋湯盆，連盤

Provenance: Sotheby’s New York, lot 187 (label)
A distinguished European private collection

來源：紐約苏富比，拍品编号187（標簽）
歐洲顯貴私人收藏

Crab tureens are extremely rare and there only appear to be five
published examples known. The present lot is exceptional in being the
most naturalistically modelled. A related grey-enamelled tureen with
rolling-leaf base, Qianlong, is in the National Museum, Stockholm,
illustrated by J.Wirgin, Fran Kina till Europa, Stockholm, 1998, p.167,
no.179.

Other related examples of red crab tureens are less naturalistic
than the present lot. One crab tureen and cover, Qianlong, is in the
Peabody Essex Museum, illustrated by W.R.Sargent, Treasures of
Chinese Export Ceramics from the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem,
MA, 2012, no. 256. The second is in the RA collection, previously in
the Robert and Melanie Gill collection, illustrated by Maria Antónia
Pinto de Matos, The RA collection of Chinese Ceramics: A Collector’s
Vision, vol.II, London, 2011, no.252. The third example was previously
in the Russel B.Aitken Collection at Camp Soleil, and was later sold
at Christie’s New York, January 20-21, 2004, lot 327. A fourth crab
tureen and cover, Qianlong, was formerly in the G.Duff Collection,
Lisbon, illustrated by A.du Boulay, Christie’s Pictorial History of Chinese
Ceramics, Oxford, 1984, p.303, fig.3, and was later sold at Sotheby’s
New York, 18 January 2019, lot 324.

For details of the charges payable in addition to the final Hammer Price of each Lot
226 | BONHAMS please refer to paragraphs 7 & 8 of the Notice to Bidders at the back of the catalogue.