Page 124 - Bonhams Catalog Cohen and Cohen Jan 24, 2023 New York

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A PAIR OF EXTREMELY RARE FAMILLE ROSE ‘RECLINING Published:
LADIES’ EACH VIEWING A PAINTING ALBUM Cohen & Cohen, The Golden Gate Collection, Antwerp, 2018, pp.
Qianlong period, circa 1750 192-193, no. 141
Each modelled as a woman reclining against an album of bound books
on an artemisia-leaf-shaped flat base, the figures wearing elegant 出版：
wave-fringed long iron-red coats decorated with gilt chilong roundels 倫敦Cohen & Cohen古董行，《The Golden Gate Collection》，安特
and each reading a book or painting album held in their raised left 衛普，2018年，頁192-193，圖版編號141
hands, a silk purse and sash removed and lying on the ground
alongside them, the beautifully modeled faces and heads separately There appears to be only one other pair recorded of this rare form,
modeled, inserted and adjustable. also published by Cohen & Cohen, Hit & Myth, Antwerp, 2014-B, pp.
9in (23cm) across (2). 58-59, no. 33. They are linked in style to a few other groups of seated
maidens with phoenixes or deer. The books are a literal representation
$20,000 - 30,000 of a Chinese metaphor: Reading a book nourishes the growth of ideas
in the mind like a child developing in the womb. Indeed, the unusual
乾隆時期 約1750年 粉彩描金紅衫《倚書仕女》手持繪本擺飾一對 depiction of a suggestion of pregnancy in the figures is an unheard-
of depiction in Chinese art, especially for the export market. The
nonchalantly untied purse and sash that sits alongside the figure are
perhaps removed to ease the tightness around their expanding bellies.
Other figures of reclining women, with phoenixes, deer, children
and those without books are more commonly found. See, Yi-Li Wu,
Reproducing Women: Medicine, Metaphor, and Childbirth in Late
Imperial China, 2010.

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