Page 310 - Bonhams Catalog Cohen and Cohen Jan 24, 2023 New York

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A MASSIVE AND EXCEPTIONALLY RARE FAMILLE ROSE Normally carp are kept in ponds as they grow quite large, but there is
‘PHOENIX AND TOBACCO-LEAF’ FISH BOWL a long tradition in China of keeping and displaying ornamental fish in
Qianlong period, circa 1770 extremely large bowls, a tradition apparently not observed elsewhere
Boldy and densely enameled in a variety of bright colors around because no other ceramic culture has actually generated (or perhaps
the deep exterior with a continuous scene depicting a variant of the even been able to fire, until the 19th century) exceptionally large
‘tobacco-leaf’ pattern with large blue and yellow serrated leaves and porcelain bowls painted around the interion with exotic fish swimming
large pinkish-red flowerheads dividing exotic standing crested mythical among long trailing green waterweed.
phoenix, beneath a narrow iron-red and white floral band, the main
design depicted large enough to almost fill the space between the The present below therefore is unusual because although it follows
base and the shoulder the interior base and sides enameled with a in a Chinese tradition of potting such massive ornamental bowls for
shoal of iron-red carp swimming amongst green water plants, the domestic Chinese indoor usage (if left outside, a cold Chinese winter
exterior sides applied with two ‘simulated bronze’ lion-mask gilt-biscuit would freeze the water and burst the bowls), the style of decoration
handles. very much suggests an Export market. It is possible that fishbowls
23in (59cm) diam are one of the few shapes popular with Western buyers that were
in fact made for Chinese domestic use, and these splendid bowls
$40,000 - 60,000 were simply bought by supercargoes (probably as ‘private trade’
not ‘Company cargo’) because they believed they would sell well in
乾隆時期 約1770年 珍稀粉彩《烟草》紋大魚缸 Europe. However, it is odd that similar fishbowls never seen to turn up
in mainland Chinese collections; and when they carry designs on the
Published: outside which are exclusively Export-taste in origin, like this one with a
Cohen & Cohen, The Golden Gate Collection, Antwerp, 2018, pp. tobacco-leaf designs, these are clearly being made with China Trade
184-185, no. 137 supercargoes as the purchasers.

出版： References: for one bowl from a pair in the Swedish Royal collection,
倫敦Cohen & Cohen古董行，《The Golden Gate Collection》，安特 see Wirgin, 1998, p. 107; Cohen & Cohen, 1999, p. 23, for a single
衛普，2018年，頁185-185，圖版編號137 jardiniere; Debomy, 2013, 133, illustrates a fish bowl with this design
which he classifies as A9.2 pattern; and Cohen & Cohen, 2014-B, no.
Swimming fish are objects of great interest to Chinese connoisseurs 28, a pair of jardinieres in this pattern.
of fish stock, especially the large plump carp called koi, China’s
most ornamental and expensive fish type. Koi (or more specifically
nishikigoi), are colored varieties of the Amur carp that are kept for
decorative purposes in outdoor koi ponds or water gardens. Koi is
an informal name for the colored variants of C. rubrofuscus. Kept
therefore for ornamental not culinary purposes, ‘koi carps’ key feature
is that they are almost invariably asymmetrically colored on their bodies
with patches of iron-red, gray and black areas, and the accidental
patterns which these natural colorations can create are avidly studied
by buyers.

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