Page 33 - March 17, 2020 Impotant Chinese Art, Sotheby's, New York

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A FINE PEACHBLOOM-GLAZED ‘BEEHIVE’ ‘Peachbloom’ waterpots of this characteristic form are
WATERPOT known as taibai zun, after the Tang dynasty (618-907) poet
KANGXI MARK AND PERIOD Li Taibai (701-762). A notorious drinker, he is often depicted
leaning against a wine jar of this form, as seen in a porcelain
finely potted in the classic domed ‘taibai zun’ form, the sculpture of the same period in the Palace Museum, Beijing,
slightly tapered sides rising to rounded shoulders and short illustrated in Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong. Qing Porcelain
waisted neck below a lipped mouth rim, the exterior evenly from the Palace Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1989, pl.
applied overall save for the rim and base with a rose-pink 89. While this form is commonly described as a waterpot, its
glaze variegated in dark and light tones and mottled with intended use is difficult to identify, as noted by Regina Krahl
raspberry-tinged flecks, the body incised with three stylized in ‘Peachbloom’, Chinese Porcelain from the 15th to the 18th
archaistic dragon roundels, the recessed base with a six- Century, Eskenazi, London, 2006, p. 10. It is imagined that
character mark in underglaze blue vessels of this type were filled with water to allow a painter
Diameter 5 in., 12.7 cm to dip their brush and then shape it on the neck. However,
Chinese painters typically dip their brush directly into the
PROVENANCE ink, previously prepared by grinding an ink cake with a few
Collection of the T.B. Walker Foundation. drops of water.
Sotheby’s New York, 29th November 1988, lot 225. Similar waterpots include one in the Palace Museum,
Beijing, illustrated in op. cit., pl. 125; another in the Shanghai
Museum, published in Wang Qingzheng, ed., Kangxi
Porcelain Wares from the Shanghai Museum Collection,
Hong Kong, 1998, pl. 206; a third from the Sir Percival David
Collection and now in the British Museum, London, included
in Illustrated Catalogue of Ming and Qing Monochrome
Wares, London, 1989, no. 580 and on the cover; and a
further example from the collections of Edward T. Chow and
the British Rail Pension Fund, sold twice in our Hong Kong
rooms, 25th November 1980, lot 66, and again 16th May
1989, lot 61.

$ 100,000-150,000
清康熙 豇豆紅釉團龍紋太白尊
《大清康熙年製》款

來源
T.B. Walker 基金會收藏
紐約蘇富比1988年11月29日，編號225

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