Page 169 - Sotheby's Asia Week March 2024 Chinee Art

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A BLUE AND WHITE ‘ROMANCE OF THE THREE 清康熙 青花三國演義人物故事圖棒槌瓶
KINGDOMS’ ROULEAU VASE, QING DYNASTY,
KANGXI PERIOD
來源：
the base with a double circle in underglaze blue Weetman Dickinson Pearson (1856-1927) 收藏
Height 17¼ in., 43.8 cm
馬錢特，倫敦
PROVENANCE
Collection of Weetman Dickinson Pearson (1856-1927). 來源：
Marchant, London. 《近期入藏：私人收藏重要中國瓷器》，馬錢特，倫
敦，2012年，編號14
EXHIBITED 《康熙青花釉裏紅》，馬錢特，倫敦，2016年，編
Recent Acquisitions. Important Chinese Porcelain from 號22
Private Collections, Marchant, London, 2012, cat. no. 14.
Kangxi Underglaze Blue and Copper-Red, Marchant, London,
2016, cat. no. 22.
Based on the 14th-century novel, Romance of the Three
Kingdoms, the present vase is finely painted depicting
warriors fiercely charging ahead on horseback amidst a
rocky landscape. Set in the turbulent years of the end of the
Han dynasty, the novel gained immense popularity during
the Ming dynasty due to the wide circulation of woodblock
prints that were produced for the novel. As such, it was also
a frequent motif on porcelains of the late Ming and early
Qing periods.
See a closely related blue and white rouleau vase, similarly
decorated with bands to the neck but decorated with a
difference scene from the novel, in the Shanghai Museum,
Shanghai, illustrated in Kangxi Porcelain Wares from the
Shanghai Museum Collection, Shanghai, 1998, pl. 11. Another
famille-verte vase, included in the exhibition Famille Verte:
Chinese Porcelain in Green Enamels, Groninger Museum,
Schoten, 2011, cat. no. 79, is depicted with a similar scene,
where warriors on horseback are engaged in battle.
Weetman Dickinson Pearson (1856-1927), created 1st
Viscount Cowdray in 1917, was highly active in a variety of
pursuits, most notably as an oil industrialist and owner of
the Pearson Conglomerate, a liberal M.P. for Colchester
(1895-1910), President of the Airboard (1917-18) and a
keen philanthropist. In 1914 the American ambassador in
London remarked that ‘Cowdray could have owned Mexico,
Ecuador and Colombia’ due to the extraordinary wealth he
built up though his business projects, notably the Blackwell
Tunnel in London and tunnels under the East River in New
York, as well as his discovery of one of the world’s largest
oil fields, the Potrero del Llano in Mexico. In 1909 Lord
Cowdray purchased Dunecht House, a stately mansion
which presides over a great Scottish estate in Gothic and
Italian splendor to the west of the city of Aberdeen. He
employed Ashton Webb to aggrandize the house and the
large spaces were filled with décor and furnishing suited
to the sumptuous style of the early 20th century, which
included 16th and 17th century chimney pieces, inlaid
paneling and Chinese porcelain.
⊖ $ 50,000-70,000

334 SOTHEBY’S COMPLETE CATALOGUING AVAILABLE AT SOTHEBYS.COM/N11410 335