Page 32 - Fine Chinese Ceramics Sept 2016
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ANOTHER PROPERTY PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION
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A LARGE KESI GOLD-GROUND PANEL
A SET OF FOUR CLOISONNÉ-INSET QING DYNASTY (1644-1911)
HONGMU BARREL-FORM STOOLS The large panel is fnely woven with archaistic vases, jardinières and censers containing
GUANGXU PERIOD (1875-1908) fowers, lingzhi, and fnger citron, and with beribboned auspicious objects. The whole is
surrounded by a peach-ground border woven with chilong amidst leafy branches.
Each has a circular frame enclosing
a cloisonné panel centered by a lotus 105¿ x 71 in. (266.9 x 180.3 cm.)
medallion surround by foral scroll. The
sides are carved with a band of bosses $40,000-60,000
at the top and bottom and with a motif of
bats suspending chimes, in between inset The use of ‘antiques’ as decoration in Chinese art was a popular theme in the Qing
panels of cloisonné decorated with lotus dynasty, beginning in the Kangxi period due to the Kangxi Emperor’s interest in archaism.
blossoms. Three small kesi panels with similar groupings of ‘antiques’ and fowers in the Amy S.
Clague Collection of Chinese Textiles are illustrated by C. Brown in Weaving China’s Past,
18 in. (45.7 cm.) high (4) The Phoenix Art Museum, Seattle, 2000, pp. 88-91, no. 14. Brown suggests that these kesi
$8,000-12,000 panels were likely made for New Year’s celebrations because of the association of fnger
citron, plum blossoms, orchid and osmanthus with New Year motifs. As these motifs are
A very similar pair of cloisonne-inset barrel- also on the present panel, it may also have been made for the celebration of the New Year.
form zitan stools, dated mid-Qing period,
is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, and is A related kesi hanging scroll, dated to the Qianlong period and, similarly decorated with
illustrated by Tian Jiaqing, Classic Chinese shaped panels of ‘antiques’ and fowers, is in the Beijing Palace Museum collection and is
Furniture of the Qing Dynasty, Hong Kong, illustrated in Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Kesi Textiles (kesi tezhan tulu), National
1995, p. 82, no. 16. Palace Museum, Taiwan, 1989, no. 31. ‘Antiques’ similar to those on the present carpet are
often included on the borders of Chinese coromandel screens. An example of a screen
清光緒 紅木嵌琺瑯綉墩四張成堂 with a border decorated with similar ‘antiques’ formerly in the Doris Duke Charitable
Foundation, was sold at Christie’s New York, 17-18 March 2016, lot 1328.
清 緙絲博古花卉紋挂屏
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