Page 60 - Bonhams Asian Art London November 5, 2020

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A FAMILLE VERTE ‘LOTUS PLUCKING’ BASIN
Kangxi
Finely enamelled with elegant palace ladies in boats plucking
lotus flowers from the lake while the Emperor looks on with
pleasure beside his favourite concubine beneath a covered
pavilion, the flat everted lipped rim finely decorated with six
cartouches containing the ‘Hundred Antiques’ on a diaper-
pattern ground, metal rim.
42.5cm (16 3/4in) diam.

£5,000 - 8,000
CNY44,000 - 70,000

清康熙 五彩採蓮圖大盆

The theme of beautiful women picking lotus flowers from a
lake was popular with poets, playwrights and artists in Imperial
China as an activity representing hedonistic pleasure at court.
This stems from the story of King Fuchai of Wu (r. 495-473
BC) and his infatuation with the legendary beauty and femme
fatale Xi Shi who plucked lotus on the lake. The King was so
bewitched by her beauty that he neglected affairs of state, and
his kingdom collapsed.

This motif would be employed again for the Tang emperor
Xuanzong (685-762) who was also in love with another femme
fatale, the Imperial Consort Yang Guifei, who bathed at the
Huaqing pool reserved for emperors and where lotus were
placed to recreate the scene. The emperor claimed that even
the lotus was not as beautiful as his concubine Yang Guifei.
Yang Guifei’s influence in court eventually stirred the An
52 Lushan rebellion, from which the Tang Imperial family would
never completely recover.

A basin painted with a similar subject, late Kangxi, is illustrated
by C.J.A.Jorg in Chinese Ceramics in the Collection of the
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, no.174, p.159. A famille verte
rouleau vase with a similar design described as ‘The Emperor
Xuanzong standing beside Yang Guifei, the most beautiful
woman in China looking on at ladies picking lotus flowers’ is
illustrated by Wang Qingzheng in Kangxi Porcelain Ware from
the Shanghai Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1998, no.127,
pp.196-7.
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AN IRON-RED AND GREEN-ENAMELLED ‘DRAGON’
DISH
Chenghua six-character mark, Kangxi
Finely potted with deep curving sides, decorated in the centre
of the well with a large writhing iron-red five-clawed dragon
pursuing the flaming pearl amidst wispy flames, all within
a green ruyi-head border, the exterior decorated with four
striding dragons each pursuing a flaming pearl, wood stand,
28cm (11in) diam. (2).

£3,000 - 5,000
CNY26,000 - 44,000

清康熙 礬紅施綠彩龍紋盤
青花「大明成化年製」楷書款

Provenance: an important European private collection,
and thence by descent

來源：重要歐洲私人收藏，並由後人保存迄今

53

For details of the charges payable in addition to the final Hammer Price of each Lot
58 | BONHAMS please refer to paragraphs 7 & 8 of the Notice to Bidders at the back of the catalogue.