Page 58 - Mounted Oriental Porcelain Getty Museum

J. LIDDED BOWL

THE PORCELAIN: Chinese (Kangxi), 1662-1722, and Japanese (Arita), circa 1660
THE SILVER MOUNTS: French (Paris), 1722-27

HEIGHT: 8 in. (20.3 cm); DIAMETER: 9% in. (25.1 cm)
87.01.4

DESCRIPTION FIG. 7A

The circular lidded bowl is composed of three pieces MARKS
of porcelain mounted with silver. The body is potted in
a fine light gray clay and covered with a white glaze. The painter's mark of two concentric circles are
painted in underglaze blue on the underside of the bowl.
The white porcelain is painted with cinnabar-red
overglaze enamel and gilded. The circular piece of por- Each silver mount is stamped with a dove (the Pari
celain forming the top of the lid is divided into sixteen discharge mark for small silver works used between
panels that are alternatively painted with flowers and May 6, 1722, and September 2, 1727, under the fermier
grasses (fig. 7A). The underside is painted in red, green, Charles Cordier) (fig. jc}.
brown, and yellow with a flowering branch. It is encir-
cled by a green band inside a band of alternating sec- COMMENTARY
tions of trellis pattern and cloud collars (fig.75). The central section of the lid has been cracked in
five places and the outer section of the lid in one place.
The main body of the lid is painted with the lower This type of cinnabar-red painted overglaze enamel
remains of a band of banana plant. Below, a band of decoration came into use during the Ming dynasty
"tortoiseshell" pattern is punctuated at the cardinal (1388-1644). Vessels decorated in this manner were
points with four of the eight "precious things": the pearl,
the mirror, the artemesia leaf, and the musical stone.

A cloud collar design is painted around the shoul-
der of the bowl with the scrolling stems, leaves, buds,
and flowers of a stylized chrysanthemum. Floral vines
are painted at the cardinal points on the open field
of the belly.

The bowl is mounted with silver around the foot
and lip and on the lid around the rim and the top. The lid
is surmounted by a silver finial that takes the form of a
berry cluster in a six-leaf cup on a flat round base. It is se-
cured to the lid with a threaded bolt and a four-petaled
nut. The silver rim on the lip of the bowl is punctuated
with four flanges that repeat the shape of the cloud col-
lar they overlay. The foot mount has a gadrooned band
at its center.

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