Page 15 - 2019 OctoberEnammelled Jewels Sotheby's Hong Kong

A Brocade Pouch to

Amuse the Emperor

Regina Krahl

Imperial works of art completely conceived and created inside have resulted from this order. The complexity of creating such
the Forbidden City in Beijing, to the direct order and under the works that required the cooperation of different palace workshops
close scrutiny of the Emperor himself, are among China’s greatest is underlined by the fact that the companion bottle was sent to the
treasures; and the present flask, with a ‘Peking glass’ body made palace, even though its enamels fired less well.
by imperial artisans in the Glass House, and falangcai decoration
The importance of these two vessels for the history both of Chinese
applied by imperial painters in the Enamelling Workshops, is one
glass and of falangcai enamelling can hardly be stressed enough.
of the most important examples preserved. It is a masterpiece
A workshop for enamelling was first set up in the Forbidden City by
in virtually every respect, in terms of its model and design, its
the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1662-1722) in 1693 and a glass workshop
execution and its size. The flask is unique, but there exists one
followed in 1696, and we know that at least by 1705 enamelled
companion piece, of the same form and colour scheme, but of
glass items had been successfully completed and sent to the
different design, that was clearly made at the same time, and
Emperor; but whereas the Beijing Enamelling Workshops supplied
apparently shared the same imperial provenance and collecting
large numbers of exquisitely painted copper-bodied and porcelain-
history, before entering the collection of the Hong Kong Museum of
bodied falangcai wares to the court from the late Kangxi to the
Art in the 1980s (fig. 1).
mid-Qianlong period – many of which are still extant – the number
An imperial order from the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736-1795) to hand of glass vessels is extremely small. By far the largest proportion
in a clear blue glass pouch-shaped bottle (baofu shi ping) and to consists of snuff bottles, and the few other falangcai glass pieces
produce some falangcai enamelled glass-bodied bottles modelled known are miniature vases, miniature brush pots and other small
after it, is listed in the Zaobanchu records for the 22nd day of the vessels for the desk, rarely over 11 cm tall. In short, apart from the
first month in the third year of the Qianlong reign, 1738 (fig. 2). present bottle and its companion in the Hong Kong Museum of Art,
Only two pieces, the present bottle and its companion, seem to which seem to be the only large pieces in existence and the only

AN ENAMELLED JEWEL – THE LE CONG TONG COLLECTION | 13