Page 19 - Sotheby's Falancai Poppy Bowl Oct. 3, 2018

these album leaves, which depicts corn poppies next to No other pieces of Qianlong falangcai porcelain appear to
fringed irises, looks almost certain to have influenced the exist painted with poppies, and this bowl is further unusual
way the poppy flowers on this bowl were conceived in the in showing loosely strewn fruits – a variation of the sanduo,
enamelling workshops (fig. 2). the Three Abundances – on the inside. Comparable bowls
with different flower motifs and accompanying poems on
A major difference in the depiction of the nature scene on this
Qianlong bowl from those on the Yongzheng dishes concerns the outside are in the National Palace Museum, Taipei,
the way the motif here has been ‘cut off’ at the rim, or better, but otherwise they are extremely rare; see the Museum’s
enlarged beyond the space available for painting – a ploy to exhibition catalogue, op. cit., 1992, cat. nos 57, 58 and 61,
make the motif seemingly jump out of the two-dimensional the latter with a fruiting branch also on the inside. Generally,
plane. Such attempts to catch the viewer’s attention by however, bowls and dishes with such painterly decoration
suggesting three-dimensionality, which were practised already on the outside are undecorated on the inside, while pieces
in Chinese handscroll paintings on paper or silk, are today with more formal, coloured sgraffiato decoration often show
still frequently used in advertising. At Jingdezhen, this style painted insides; compare, for example, a pair of dishes with
of depiction was turned into the guozhihua style, where the yellow sgraffiato grounds outside and freely strewn fruits
design ‘climbs over the wall’ and actually continues on the inside, illustrated in Liao Pao Show (Liao Baoxiu), Huali cai
inside of the vessel – a very different concept, which scorns ci: Qianlong yangcai/Stunning Decorative Porcelains from
the idea behind the present stratagem, namely to engage the the Ch’ien-lung Reign, exhibition catalogue, National Palace
viewer by omitting part of the design. Museum, Taipei, 2008, cat. no. 91.