Page 140 - Bonhams Chinese Paintings June 2015

7250 (detail)

Property from Another Owner

7250
Two massive blue and white ovoid jars
Kangxi period
Each formed with a flared neck of slightly different height but painted with the same upright leaf
band on the exterior, triangular-sectioned band of pearls around the shoulder and above the base
of the elongated ovoid body displaying composite lotus flowers and curly leaves surrounding six
circular landscape reserves: the first of boatmen eating lunch on deck; the second of scholars on
a hillside bluff near their rural retreat looking onto the hills, water and architecture around them;
the third of huntsmen on horseback shooting their prey with arrows; the fourth a village complete
with arching bridge to a ceremonial hall; the fifth of two skiffs with fisherman plying their nets; the
sixth of two hunters on horseback with arrows, a hunting hawk and hunting dog; the lustrous
glaze covering all surfaces except the wide foot and recessed base.
36 7/8in (93.5cm) high
$100,000 - 200,000

Provenance
the collection of Salvador Ugarte, Mexico City
Ralph Chait, New York, 1950s

Tall jars and vases of this type are often referred to as soldier or dragoon vases, after the
famous group of 151 Chinese blue and white porcelains which Augustus the Strong of Saxony
received in 1717 from Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia, in exchange for 600 Saxon dragoons.
For surviving examples, now exhibited in the Bogengalerie at the Zwinger Pavilion, see Ulrich
Pietsch, Anette Loesch and Eva Stroba, The Dresden Porcelain Collection: China, Japan,
Meissen, 2006, p. 6 and pp. 18-19.

A pair of massive jars with covers from the same period sold in Bonhams & Butterfields,
San Francisco, Sale 15409, 18 December 2007, lot 4368. For a single jar and cover with
decoration similar to lot 4368, traceable to the original Saxon collection, see Bonhams,
London, Sale 18827, 12 May 2011, lot 317; and another pair with domed covers sold in
Bonhams, London, Sale 20580, 7 November 2013, lot 61.

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