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A PAIR OF FAMILLE-ROSE ‘DAYAZHAI’ ‘PARROT 清光緒 約1876年 粉彩壽桃鸚鵡圖長方花盆一
AND PEACH’ RECTANGULAR JARDINIÈRES, 對 《大雅齋》《天地一家春》款
QING DYNASTY, GUANGXU PERIOD, CIRCA 1876
each with a three-character Dayazhai mark and a five-
character Tiandi yi jia chun oval seal mark, all in iron red,
wood stands (4)
Length 6⅞ in., 17.6 cm
Among the thirty-one designs for Dayazhai wares created by
the Imperial Embroidery Workshop in 1874 is a drawing for
a “rectangular flowerpot of peach blossoms and fruits.” The
accompanying notes specify that the design should feature
blooming peach branches bearing ripe fruit alongside a pair
of parrots. Both motifs—the peach and the parrot—carry
auspicious connotations of longevity in Chinese symbolism,
with the peach signifying immortality and the parrot
embodying enduring vitality.
This design is illustrated in Guanyang ciqi: Gugong
bowuyuancang Qing dai zhici guanyang yu yuyao ciqi [Official
designs and imperial porcelain: official porcelain designs and
imperial Qing dynasty porcelains in the Palace Museum],
Beijing, 2007, pl. 31, where it is illustrated alongside a purple-
ground jardinière and stand of the same design. Compare
a single white-ground jardinière of the same design in the
Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Ying-Chen Peng, Artful
Subversion. Empress Dowager Cixi’s Image Making, Yale,
2023, p. 82, fig. 55. See also an identical pair, first sold in
Christie’s New York, 1st December 1994, lot 446, and more
recently in these rooms, 19th September 2023, lot 551, from
the Barbara Jean Levy Collection.
$ 20,000-30,000

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