Page 140 - Bonhams Catalog Cohen and Cohen Jan 24, 2023 New York

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A RARE AND POSSIBLY UNIQUE GRISAILLE AND FAMILLE Published:
ROSE RECTANGULAR PENBOX AND HINGED COVER Cohen & Cohen, The Elephant in the Room, Antwerp, 2019, pp. 32-
Qianlong period, circa 1740 33, no. 13
The exterior of the cover is brilliantly painted in grisaille with gilt
highlights with a large oval leafy scroll cartouche crested by a cherub 出版：
(angel head with wings) with a two-masted sailing ship in a blustery 倫敦Cohen & Cohen古董行，《The Elephant in the Room》，安特衛
wavy sea below dark scudding clouds and two ships in the distance, 普，2019年，頁32-33，圖版編號13
the interior, however, has an opposing view of a calm pearl river
with a sampan plying the waters and approached by two figures, This carefully spaced scene of ships at sea was copied from a
possibly Europeans, in a small craft leaving a tree-lined shore with contemporaneous European print, and the Chinese version imitates
hilly backdrop, the exterior sides and the underside of the elongated the engraved lines of the original source, echoing the similar treatment
octagonal rectangular box painted with colorful enamel composite of an engraved print source on whalebone carvings (‘scrimshaw’). The
flower groupings of peony, chrysanthemum and others and single lid and base are joined by a European silver hinged mount. Very few
loose sprays, all floating on a grisaille painted dense honeycomb cell examples of this form of penbox (rather than the much commoner
ground, the box interior plain. snuffboxes) are recorded in the literature about Chinese export
6in (15cm) across porcelain. Copying Western prints as grisaille decoration onto Chinese
porcelain seems to have been especially popular during a relatively
$5,000 - 7,000 short period around the middle of the 18th century, possibly related to
the emergence of a less flamboyant taste in Europe for Neo-classical
乾隆時期 約1740年 墨彩粉彩錦地開光航海圖連蓋長方筆盒 decoration as a result of the publication of Roman archaeological finds
at Pompeii and Herculaneum.
References: Cohen & Cohen, 2013, no. 51, a similar penbox with
Mughal subject and an interior scene, Le Belle Villageoise, after
Boucher.

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