Page 28 - Jie Rui Tang Kangxi porcelain mar 2018

306 A FAMILLE-VERTE ⌲Ꮴ⛆ ρᒖᆞⅡ倅ธృ㾖᪴⯹
‘LANDSCAPE AND
POEM’ BOWL

Qing Dynasty, Kangxi Period ҳ⎽
秣秉猙➃佐询
the deep rounded sides rising from a straight
秣秉豤㺢嫲1994䎃11剢29傈管贫314Ⱖ♧
foot, the center of the interior painted with
䗱꧉㛔 Berwald Oriental Art ⧍侚1996䎃
a small landscape vignette of a riverside
hut under the red foliage of an autumn tree
surrounded by verdant hills and blue blu" s, ᆂ㻪
the motif repeated and expanded across the շ䫵〢輑➛ : 悦誩㛔询䐁擳櫙㐼㾝ո豤㺢嫲
band encircling the interior rim, the exterior 秣秉2014䎃3剢管贫14
with a scholar sitting with a qin atop a cli"
gazing at a similar seasonal landscape, peaks
ܧ❵
and crags near and distant in varying colors, Je" rey P StamenCynthia Volk ⿻⧋❠俛
the riverbank studded with resplendent trees, շ俒ꅷ⼾搭 : 悦誩㛔询䐁擳渿⚆櫙ո䋒ス
huts, and pavilions, a poem inscribed at the
饟2017䎃㕬晝49
break in the landscape, the base with a fu mark
in underglaze blue within a double circle, coll.
no. 400.
Diameter 7⅜ in., 18.8 cm
PROVENANCE
New York Private Collection.
Sotheby’s New York, 29th November 1994, lot
314 (part lot).
Berwald Oriental Art, London, 1996.
EXHIBITED
Embracing Classic Chinese Cultures: Kangxi
Porcelain from the Jie Rui Tang Collection,
Sotheby’s New York, March 2014, cat. no. 14.
LITERATURE
Je" rey P. Stamen and Cynthia Volk with Yibin
Ni, A Culture Revealed: Kangxi-era Chinese
Porcelain from the Jie Rui Tang Collection,
Bruges, 2017, pl. 49.
$ 25,000-35,000

The painting and calligraphy on this bowl The poem is preceded by a leaf-shaped seal, A related bowl, similarly marked on the base,
reference retirement. The poem, ‘Climbing and followed by a circular and square seal is illustrated in Kangxi Porcelain Wares from
a Tower: To Councilor Wang’, is by the Tang (both with illegible characters). Though the the Shanghai Museum Collection, Hong Kong,
dynasty poet Wei Yingwu (737-791). In it he third and fourth characters of the poem have 1998, pl. 106. The same catalogue illustrates
laments his separation from his good friend been changed on the bowl, the meaning a second ‘landscape and poem’ bowl in the
Wang Qing. The poem reads: remains consistent with the original poem, as Shanghai Museum collection, cat. no. 110, this
translated above. one with the base unmarked.
I hate climbing mountains and towers without
you, During the early years of the Kangxi period, Painting an artemisia leaf at the start of a
the clouds and sea of Chu and memories never the entirely respectable theme of retirement poem and a seal at the end was a convention
end, from imperial service was colored by issues of developed by ceramic artisans in the 17th
the sound of mallets at the foot of lea) ess hills, loyalty. Many Ming dynasty scholars opted for century. It appears on the present example, as
in a prefecture of brambles and winter rain. exile over service to the new dynastic power well as on the aforementioned bowl in the Jie
(Translation by Bill Porter, In Such Hard Times: whereas others readily accepted change. The Rui Tang Collection, on numerous ‘poem and
The Poetry of Wei Ying-wu, Port Townsend, device of transforming a two-dimensional landscape’ porcelains in the Shanghai Museum
WA, 2009, p. 254-255.) painting with its inspirational poetic inscription collection (ibid, cat. no. 110), and on vases
into a three-dimensional functional object such as lot 330 in this sale. The leaf and mark
gained new aesthetic heights and favor during may be a device to enhance the ‘literati’ quality
the period as a benign means to express the of the porcelain by imitating the distinctive
con$ icting loyalties of the time. seals used by artists, calligraphers, and
collectors to mark their work.

26 SOTHEBY’S