Page 87 - Jie Rui Tang Kangxi porcelain mar 2018
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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
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