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A CORAL-GROUND FAMILLE-ROSE BOWL Exquisitely enameled with luxuriant oral sprays against a
QIANLONG SEAL MARK AND PERIOD bright yellow and coral ground, bowls of this type are rare
and only three closely related examples appear to have been
well-potted with steep rounded sides, painted to the exterior published: the rst, from the collections of the British Rail
with three evenly spaced yellow-ground panels of shaded pink Pension Fund, the Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong, and the
peony blooms, bordered with foliate scrollwork, all against a Jingguantang collection, was sold twice in our Hong Kong
rich coral-red ground, the base with a six-character seal mark rooms, 16th May 1989, lot 81, and 8th April 2007, lot 802, and
in underglaze blue at Christie’s Hong Kong, 30th May 2012, lot 2994; the second,
Diameter 4¼ in., 10.8 cm from the collection of the Grierson family, was sold in our
London rooms, 14th November 2001, lot 104; and the third was
PROVENANCE sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 5th/6th November 1997, lot 956.
Collection of Sybil Luna Moses (1900-1992) and Maurice From the Kangxi period dark-colored grounds adorned with
(1888-1962) Dangoor, Shanghai and thence by descent. vibrantly colored oral designs were favored for their dramatic
demonstration of the newly developed falangcai enamels at
$ 80,000-120,000 the palace Workshops in Beijing. These bowls were made at
Jingdezhen and enameled in Beijing and inspired a variety of
Sybil Luna Moses 1900 1992 Maurice 1888 1962 imperial wares made in later reigns, such as this bowl that
Dangoor closely follows its Kangxi prototype. A bowl of this design
with a Kangxi yuzhi mark in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is
illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures in the
Palace Museum. Porcelains with Cloisonne Enamel Decoration
and Famille Rose Decoration, Hong Kong, 1999, pl. 2, together
with a similarly decorated cup with Yongzheng mark and of the
period, pl. 81.
The motif on the present bowl remained popular throughout
the Qing period; see for example a Jiaqing mark and period
bowl included in the Oriental Ceramic Society exhibition
Enamelled Polychrome Porcelain in the Manchu Dynasty,
London, 1951, cat. no. 199, and sold in our Hong Kong
rooms, 3rd May 1994, lot 214; a Daoguang mark and period
example from the Ohlmer collection in the Roemer Museum,
Hildesheim, illustrated in Ulrich Wiesner, Chinesisches
Porzellan, Mainz am Rhein, 1981, pl. 138; and a further bowl
with a Guangxu mark and of the period, in the Weishaupt
collection, published in Gunhild Avitabile, From the Dragon’s
Treasure, London, 1987, pl. 29.
The bowl has the added distinction of its association with
the illustrious Sassoon family which established trading ties
with the East in the early 19th century. Sybil Luna Moses
Dangoor, who bequeathed the bowl to her daughter, was
the granddaughter of David Sassoon (1792-1864). Based
rst in Mumbai, David Sassoon moved the family business
to Shanghai where, by the mid 19th century, there was a
ourishing Jewish community of Baghdadian origin, nearly all
of whom were following in the intrepid footsteps of Sassoon
whose eponymous rm was one of the most successful
international trading operations in the world.
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