Page 59 - 2020 October 8 HK Fine Classical Paintings

Yongzheng porcelain bowls with famille-rose peach-and-bat men in a landscape with red bats, titled Flying Bats Filling the design was also used for enamelling porcelains at the imperial
design are extremely rare. The present bowl, with five peaches Sky (i.e. Infinite Blessings), in Harmony and Integrity, op.cit., workshops in the Forbidden City in Beijing. Compare a pair of
all rendered on the exterior, appears to be unique, as other cat. no. II-112. Yongzheng falangcai porcelain bowls in the National Palace
examples are designed with six peaches, four on the exterior Only a dozen comparable Yongzheng bowls of the peach-and- Museum, Taipei, also painted with peach trees and five bats,
and two on the interior. Another unusual feature of the present bat design are recorded. A pair was formerly in the collection but in a less pronounced design, exhibited in Painted Enamels
piece is that the fruits do not have the heavy pink outlines seen of T.T. Tsui, published in The Tsui Museum of Art. Chinese of Qing Yongzheng Period (1723-1735), National Palace
on other examples, which demonstrates the superb skills of Ceramics IV: Qing Dynasty, Hong Kong, 1995, pl. 155. A pair Museum, Taipei, 2013, pl. 82.
the porcelain painters and the marvellous possibilities of the formerly in the Eisei Bunko, Tokyo, an art collection with its Other Yongzheng vessel forms with the peach-and-bat
new famille-rose palette. origins in the Nanboku-cho period (1336-92) formed by the design are also very rare. Compare a Yongzheng covered box
Five is a propitious number, and the five red bats painted Hosokawa family, one of the top daimyo clans in Japan, is now formerly in the Van Slyke and Meiyintang collections, sold in
on the bowl are among the most popular themes in Chinese also separated: one bowl entered the Meiyintang collection these rooms 8th April 2013, lot 3036, which appears to be
decorative arts. Red bats provide a rebus or visual pun for vast and was sold in these rooms on 5th October 2011, lot 16, the the only example recorded (fig. 2). Examples of large dishes
good fortune, and five bats provide a rebus for wufu, the Five other, still in the Eisei Bunko today, is illustrated in Sekai tōji include one from the collection of J. Pierpont Morgan, sold in
Blessings of longevity, health, wealth, love of virtue and a good zenshū/Ceramic Art of the World, vol. 12, Tokyo, 1956, col. pl. these rooms, 29th April 1997, lot 400, and one in the Palace
end to life. Bats painted upside down provide a further rebus, 11. Another pair in the Baur collection, Geneva, is illustrated in Museum, Beijing, in China. The Three Emperors 1662-1795,
since the word for ‘upside down’, dao, is pronounced similarly John Ayers, The Baur Collection Geneva: Chinese Ceramics, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2005-6, cat. no. 181. A group
to the word for ‘arriving’, and thus an upside-down bat signifies Geneva, 1968-74, vol. 4, nos A 594 and 595. A pair from of smaller dishes is discussed in An Exhibition of Important
‘happiness is arriving’. the collections of Chen Rentao, Paul and Helen Bernat and Chinese Ceramics from the Robert Chang Collection, London,
Related to the present bowl is a Yongzheng copper cup and T. Endo, now separated, was originally sold in these rooms 1993, cat. no. 92; see also an example in the British Museum,
saucer enamelled in the imperial Enamelling Workshops of 15th November 1988, lot 44, and 29th April 1997, lot 401, London, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World’s Great
the Forbidden City with similar peach-and-bat designs, and and at Christie’s Hong Kong, 29th May 2007, lot 1374, and Collections, vol. 5, New York, 1981, col. pl. 67; and another
an enamelled copper water pot formed as a peach branch is illustrated in Sotheby’s. Thirty Years in Hong Kong, Hong dish in Denise Patry Leidy, Treasures of Asian Art. The Asia
with two fruit and painted with bats, respectively exhibited in Kong, 2003, pl. 326. Another pair was sold at Yamanaka & Co., Society’s Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection,
Harmony and Integrity: The Yongzheng Emperor and His Times, London, 1938, and was included in their catalogue Chinese New York, 1994, pl. 198. Other examples include a pair of
Taipei, 2009, cat. no. II-18, and China. The Three Emperors Ceramic Art, Bronze, Jade etc., no. 116, pl. 12 (illustrating one Yongzheng dishes formerly in the collections of Barbara
1662-1795, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2005-6, cat. no. of the pair). Also known is one bowl from the Avery Brundage Hutton (1912-1979) and the British Rail Pension Fund, exhibited
295. collection, in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, on loan at the Dallas Museum of Art, 1985-1988, illustrated in
published in Terese Tse Bartholomew, Hidden Meanings in Sotheby’s Hong Kong Twenty Years, Hong Kong, 1993, p. 202,
Two court paintings further demonstrate the popularity of the Chinese Art, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, 2006, p. 204, no. 276, and sold twice in our London rooms, 6th July 1971, lot
bat motif at the Yongzheng court: a landscape by Chen Mei pl. 7.44.1. 265, and 8th July 1974, lot 408, twice in our Hong Kong rooms,
(c.1694-1745) with a large number of bats in the sky, inscribed 29th November 1977, lot 160, and 16th May 1989, lot 88, and
Ten Thousand Blessings (bats) to the Emperor and presented One other related pair of different proportions, from the Allen recently at Christie’s Hong Kong, 28th May 2014, lot 3319.
to the Yongzheng Emperor on his birthday in the 4th year of J. Mercher and John M. Crawford, Jr. collections, was sold
his reign (1726) (fig. 1), ibid., cat. no. 270; and another, by at Parke-Bernet New York, 10th October 1957, lot 261, and
court artist Jin Jie (fl. 18th century), depicting three elderly in these rooms, 24th May 1978, lot 252. The peach-and-bat

fig. 1
Chen Mei (c.1694-1745), Ten Thousand Blessings (bats) to the Emperor,
presented to the Yongzheng Emperor on his birthday in 1726, ink and
colour on silk
© Palace Museum, Beijing
圖一
清雍正四年 陳枚《萬福來朝》軸 絹本設色 為雍正壽慶製
© 北京故宮博物院

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