Page 164 - Bonhams Chinese Paintings June 2015

7289 Property from a West
Coast Collection
7290
7289
162 | BONHAMS A famille rose and gilt enameled
Eight Immortals dish
Xianfeng six-character mark and of the period
Displaying crossed vajras within a lotus flower
roundel and a band of shou-characters
separating the Eight Buddhist Treasures below
the rim, the exterior walls encircled by the Eight
Immortals set against bodhi leaves in various
colors amid jeweled pendants, animal heads,
rocks and waves, the mark on the recessed
base written in iron red regular script.
6 1/4in (15.9cm) diameter
$8,000 - 12,000

For a bowl in the Qing Court collection, of
the same pattern and same mark written in
regular script, see Gugong Bowuyuan Cang
Wenwu Zhenpin Quanji 39: Falangcai Fencai
(The Complete Collection of the Treasures of
the Palace Museum, vol. 39: Porcelains with
Cloisonné Enamel Decoration and Famille
Rose Decoration), no. 225, p. 254 (17.5cm
diameter). A bowl of the same pattern, but
displaying a Xianfeng reign mark written in iron
red seal script, was sold in Bonhams, London,
Sale 18981, 10 November 2011, lot 262.

Property from Various Owners

7290
Two similar yellow ground
famille rose medallion bowls
Guangxu six-character marks and of the period
Each painted in black outline and pale famille rose
enamels with fruiting and flowering gourd vines
across with deep curving well below a leiwen band
at the rim, both patterns repeated on the exterior
walls against a lemon yellow ground separating
four roundels, each filled with a lantern, ribboned
scepter and a vase with five stalks of grain, the
decoration differing mostly in the tiny bosses
painted to the lantern bases on one bowl but
missing on the second, the mark on the recessed
base of each bowl painted iron red regular script.
5 1/4in (13.5cm) diameter
$8,000 - 12,000

The roundel illustrates the rebus wugu
fengdeng (may there be a bumper harvest of
grain): the five grains (wugu) appearing in the
vase and the lantern (denglong in Chinese)
a pun on bumper harvest (fengdeng). See
Terese Tse Bartholomew, Hidden Meanings in
Chinese Art, 2006, 8.16.1, p. 241.

A deep bowl of the same shape, decoration and
size, also as Guangxu mark and of the period, was
sold in Christie’s, Hong Kong, sale 2915, lot 4263
(5 3/8in, 13.5cm diameter). See also the smaller
shallow bowl with the same decoration and reign
mark in the collection of the Nanjing Museum,
illustrated in Gongting Zhencang: Zhongguo Qing
dai Guanyao Ciqi (Treasures in the Royalty: The
Official Kiln Porcelain of the Chinese Qing Dynasty),
2003, p. 469 (12.4cm diameter).