Page 225 - Bonhams Catalog Cohen and Cohen Jan 24, 2023 New York

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A RARE FAMILLE ROSE PRONK-DESIGN ‘FOUR DOCTORS’ Amsterdam, which in reality was depicting the very Chinese subject of
VISIT’ PLATE three Daoist ‘star-gods’ in a cave playing chess or a related Chinese
Qianlong period, circa 1740 board game like Weiqi. Another source was perhaps the Chinese
Boldly enameled in colors at the center with three somewhat woodblock print used for the design on a late Ming blue and white
‘chinoiserie’ figures seated in long robes at a low table bearing a bowl depicting the poet Su Dongpo (on a boat) seated at a table with
large blue and white lobed-rim dish possibly of ‘kraak’ inspiration, a two drinking companions, with an inscription that quotes from the
fourth figure gesticulating beneath a slender branch of overhanging famous Song dynasty poem ‘Ode to the Red Cliffs’ about catching
blossom behind them and a back-facing peacock perched on a fence fish.
at their right side, the broad rim with a strikingly original design of six
cartouches of exotic fish reserved on a cell-pattern ground. The design arrived in Canton in 1737 and presented the supercargoes
9in (23cm) diam responsible for placing the porcelain order with a commercial problem
they first identified with commissioning the first Pronk design to
$1,200 - 1,800 be painted on porcelain at Jingdezhen. Both of Pronk’s watercolor
designs were highly detailed, and therefore very expensive to produce,
122, 6098 so the supercargoes only dared to place a small order.
乾隆時期 約1740年 粉彩普龍克《四學士之訪》圖盤
References: Jörg, 1980, pp. 26-7, for various ceramic items bearing
The scene on this plate is known as ‘The Doctor’s Visit to the Emperor’ this famous design; Howard & Ayers, 1978, p. 294, for a discussion
and is after an identified design by the Dutch artist Cornelis Pronk. It about Pronk designs; Pietsch, TW (ed.) 1995, who discusses the
was the second drawing (of four) which the Dutch East India Company Fallours fish drawings in Renard’s ‘Poissons’ etc; Cohen & Cohen,
(VOC) commissioned from Cornelis Pronk in 1735, and, like the others, 2014-B, pp. 80-81, no. 46, a large charger; Cohen & Cohen, The
it portrays a very fanciful view of life in China. Unrealistic details include Golden Gate Collection, Antwerp, 2018, pp. 52-53, no. 41, for another
the fact the table is of European design and the dish on it is of in old- plate; Cohen & Cohen, 1999, p. 35, for a pair of famille rose cisterns
fashioned ‘kraak’ style, a type that was exported to the West in the with this design; Cohen & Cohen, 2008, for a spectacular cistern
late 16th and 17th centuries and would not ever been seen, much less and basin and with an with identification of many of the fish; and
used, by the ‘Emperor’ or anyone at Court in Beijing. The parrot often Wirgin 1998, p. 177, a basin with three different fish inside, unusually
symbolized a prostitute or painted courtesan in Chinese art, so that enameled in the Chinese Imari palette.
would have been highly inappropriate next to an alleged ‘Emperor’,
or perhaps even a doctor. The design may have been inspired by a
design on a Ming jar fairly readily available to Pronk’s design team in

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