Page 79 - Christie's, Important Chinese Works of Art December 2, 2015 HK

Imperial Refinement – An Exquisite Celadon Vase
with Reserved Famille Rose Panels
Rosemary Scott
International Academic Director Asian Art
This magnificent vase is one of a small group of very fine,
similarly decorated, porcelains made for the court in the Qianlong
reign, but appears to be one of only two known examples to be
decorated with the flowers of the four seasons. The Victoria and
Albert Museum, London, has an identical vase in its collection,
(shown on the V&A website – http://collections.vam.ac.uk/
item/O165239/vase-unknown/)(fig. 1). It is probable that this
vase was originally the pair to the vase in the current sale. The
vase came into the Victoria and Albert Museum’s collection as
part of the bequest from George Salting (1835-1909), entering
the museum in 1910 following Salting’s death in December 1909.
Another similar vase from the Salting Collection came into the
Victoria and Albert Museum collection at the same time (fig. 2).
This has a comparable design to that of the ‘flowers of the four
seasons’ vases, but has four landscapes representing the four
seasons, painted in famille rose enamels and accompanied by poetic
inscriptions within the reserved panels. This second V&A vase is
illustrated by John Ayers in Far Eastern Ceramics in the Victoria and flying bats and elaborate cloud designs. The link with archaic
Albert Museum, London, 1980, colour plate 68. In that publication
Ayers describes the vase as ‘sumptuous’ and reaffirms the fact that
it was made for the court. The National Museum of China has
in its collection a similar vase with landscapes and inscriptions
(illustrated in Zhongguo Guojia Bowuguan – Guancang wenwu
yanjiu congshu – Ciqi juan, Qingdai ᷕ⚳⚳⭞⌂䈑棐棐啷㔯䈑
䞼䨞⎊㚠烉䒟☐⌟炷㶭ẋ炸[Collection of research studies on
the collections of the National Museum of China – Porcelain
volume – Qing dynasty], Shanghai, 2007, no. 105. Two further
vases from this group were in the collection of Captain Charles
Oswald Liddell (1854-1941), who, although born in Edinburgh,
Scotland, lived in China from 1877 to 1913. These two vases were
published by Bluett & Sons in The Liddell Collection of Old Chinese
Porcelain, London, 1929, nos. 178 (fig. 3) and 179 (fig. 4). One of
the Liddell vases bears landscapes similar to those on the National
Museum of China and Victoria and Albert Museum vases, while
the other Liddell vase has hunting scenes in the larger reserved
panels and longer calligraphic inscriptions in the smaller panels.
The latter vase differs from the others in the group as some of
the low relief decoration has been highlighted in gilt. The two
vases from the Liddell collection are now in the Manchester City
Art Gallery, England, having entered the collections through the
bequest of George Beatson Blair (1859-1940) in 1947.
These beautiful vases combine two aspects of imperial porcelain
which had reached peaks of refinement by the early Qianlong
reign – pale celadon glaze applied to porcelain, and famille rose
overglaze enamel decoration. As early as the Yongle reign (1403-
24) the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen experimented with a delicate
celadon glaze which could be applied to a white porcelain body.
Experimentation with celadon glazes continued at the imperial
kilns during the reigns of the Xuande and Chenghua emperors,
but it was not until the Qing dynasty Kangxi, Yongzheng and
Qianlong reigns that success with a subtle range of delicate
celadon glazes for porcelain were successively achieved. These
celadon glazes were greatly admired by the court and were given
various descriptive names such as douqing – bean green, dongqing
– eastern green, dongqing – winter green, and fenqing – soft green.
These celadon glazes retained their translucent qualities, so that,
as is the case on the current vase, where they run thinner on low
relief, they appear paler and thus delicately highlight the raised
designs. The current vase has both low relief bands around the
neck and foot, which take some of their inspiration from archaic
bronze decoration, and incised decoration on the main body
surrounding the lobed reserved panels, which is composed of
bronze decoration is reinforced by the gilt elephant head handles
on either side of the vessel.
While overglaze enamel decoration had been applied to Chinese
ceramics since at least the Jin dynasty (AD 1115-1234) a refinement
of the enamels themselves and a new delicacy of application took
place in the Kangxi reign, producing the style and palette known
in the west as famille verte, from its range of green enamels. Toward
the end of the Kangxi reign new enamel colours were added to
the palette, including the rose pink derived from colloidal gold.
In the Yongzheng reign further colours were added and a palette
of predominantly opaque or translucent enamels was developed,
which came to be known in the west as famille rose. Thus, by the
end of the Yongzheng reign/beginning of the Qianlong reign the
porcelain decorators at the imperial ateliers had a plentiful array
of enamel colours and had developed sophisticated and painterly
ways of using them. On the current vase these enamels have been
used to beautiful effect in painting groups of flowers representing
the four seasons within the reserved panels. On one panel,
representing winter are a branch of blossoming prunus combined
with camellia flowers, on another representing spring are pink,
red and yellow peonies. A third panel contains pomegranate and
jasmine representing summer, while the fourth panel contains
white and golden chrysanthemums with balsam and rocks
representing autumn.
Reserving white panels against coloured grounds and decorating
the panels with painterly overglaze enamel designs was an
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