Page 87 - Jie Rui Tang Kangxi porcelain mar 2018

349 A QUADRANGULAR ⌲Ꮴ⛆ ρᒖᲫᆞ⦋厬ృ᫦⨣
FAMILLE-VERTE
‘DEER’ VASE

Qing Dynasty, Kangxi Period ҳ⎽
Alberto Varela Santos⧍侚2002䎃
the stoutly potted square-section body
with tapered rectangular sides supporting
a waisted cylindrical neck and everted rim,
each side painted in bright enamels with
deer frolicking beneath towering pines in
vertiginous landscapes, the stags, doe, and
fawn variously nibbling lingzhi and leaves,
nestling in the grasses, and ambling along
banks and footbridges, the shoulder with four
large polychrome butter" ies amidst prunus
blossom against a speckled green ground, the
neck with a solitary ! gure sitting on a riverbank
contemplating the surrounding mountainous
landscape, the partially unglazed foot centered
with a recessed square with a beribboned
artemisia leaf in underglaze-blue, coll. no. 363.
Height 20 in., 50.8 cm
PROVENANCE
Alberto Varela Santos, London, 2002.
‘Hundred deer’ vases in famille-verte enamels
are unusual and no other example of the
present form is known. Successful potting
of square forms was a notorious challenge.
Square-section porcelain vases ! rst appear in
the late Ming dynasty. In order to survive the
! ring, thicker walls were required to reinforce
lute lines. The Kangxi period rendering of
this ambitious form attests to the con! dence
and technical prowess of the potters who
not only rose to the challenge of the form
but surpassed earlier versions with longer
tapering sides joined by clean right angles
and surmounted by a gently " aring cylindrical
mouth. A related famille-verte enameled vase
of the same form, but with bird and " ower
decoration, bearing an apocryphal Jiajing
mark, in the Shanghai Museum Collection is
illustrated in Kangxi Porcelain Wares from the
Shanghai Museum Collection, Hong Kong,
1998, pl. 103.
$ 30,000-50,000

KANGXI: THE JIE RUI TANG COLLECTION 85