Page 73 - Sothebys Important Chinese Art April 3 2018
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A closely related bowl, from the Grandidier collection and now Although grapes featured as a decorative motif on metalwork
in the Musee Guimet, Paris, is illustrated in Oriental Ceramics. from the Tang dynasty (618-906), the combination of
The World’s Great Collections, vol. 7, Tokyo, 1981, pl. 108; squirrels and grapes did not appear in Chinese painting until
and another of slightly smaller size, in the Palace Museum, the late Yuan (1279-1368) or early Ming dynasty, and grew in
Beijing, is published in Chen Runmin, Qing Shunzhi Kangxi popularity from the sixteenth century. The spreading vines
chao qinghua ci [Qing dynasty blue and white ceramics of the with numerous fruit and seeds of the grape represent the
Shunzhi and Kangxi periods], Beijing, 2005, pl. 120. Further flourishing and continuation of the family line. Thus the lively
bowls of this type include one sold in these rooms, 31st motif on these bowls expresses the wish that the family line
October 1995, lot 450, another sold in our London rooms, 7th will flourish and grow with many offspring.
December 1993, lot 246; and a third bowl, from the Jie Rui
Tang collection, to be offered in our New York rooms, 20th
March 2018, lot 383.
IMPORTANT CHINESE ART 71
