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CHINESE CERAMICS: A PRIVATE COLLECTION Boundaries. Some Qing Imperial Birthday Ceramics from
A RARE DOUCAI ‘BIRTHDAY’ DISH Hong Kong Collections’, Arts of Asia, vol. 40, no. 5, October
MARK AND PERIOD OF KANGXI 2010, pp 110-111). Lam notes the elongated and slightly
rigid style in which the reign mark on these dishes is written
the base with a six-character mark in underglaze blue and its similarity to Yongzheng period reign marks; thus
inscribed in three columns within a double circle suggesting that it represents a stylistic transition between
Diameter 8¼ in., 21.1 cm the two reigns.
Vibrantly painted in the doucai palette, the motifs adorning Two closely related dishes from the Tsui Museum of Art,
this dish brim with auspicious meaning indicating it was Hong Kong, are illustrated in ibid., pls 4 and 5; a dish from
clearly intended as a birthday gift. During his six-decade-long the Grandidier Collection, in the Musée Guimet, Paris, is
reign, the Kangxi Emperor had refrained from organizing illustrated in Oriental Ceramics. The World’s Great Collections,
large birthday celebrations, except on the occasion of vol. 7, Tokyo, 1981, col. pl. 86; another was sold twice in our
his 60th birthday in 1713, and in anticipation of his 70th Hong Kong rooms, 16th May 1989, lot 290, and 30th October
birthday in 1723. The former was a truly grand national event 2000, lot 154; and a fifth example was sold in our Paris
which lasted weeks and involved numerous processions, rooms, 13th June, 2012, lot 174, and again at Christie’s Hong
performances and banquets, and the latter would have been Kong, 4th October 2016, lot 164.
similarly magnificent had the Emperor not died unexpectedly
a few months before. Porcelain wares were produced $ 40,000-60,000
specifically for these two occasions, and the imperial kilns
at Jingdezhen began firing these wares years in advance.
Peter Y.K. Lam has recently attempted to identify porcelain 清康熙 鬥彩鶴壽延年圖盤
produced for these two events and has suggested that dishes 《大清康熙年製》款
of the present type were intended as gifts for the Emperor’s
70th birthday (see Peter Y.K. Lam, ‘Myriad Longevity Without

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