Page 71 - 2018 Hong Kong Important Chieese Art

It was customary that missionaries coming to China would
bear gifts of ‘exotic’ goods such as brocades, velvet, clocks,
paintings and enamelled wares on copper produced in places
such as Limoges, Nuremberg, Genéva and Berlin. The Kangxi
Emperor admired these gifts and became a connoisseur and
collector of Western clocks, scientific instruments and painted
enamels. His particular fascination with Western enamelled
wares and his patronage in establishing the production of such
wares in the Imperial Palace Workshop brought about a new
decorative art that came to represent a harmonious blend of
western technique and Chinese workmanship.
The technique used for enamelling on metal-bodied ware was
introduced in Guangzhou by Jesuit missionaries around 1684,
when the ban on overseas trade was lifted. Guangzhou artists
had been most immediately exposed to wares from Europe
and had mastered the technical skills of enamel painting earlier
than those working in the Palace Workshop in Beijing. In the
58th year of the Kangxi reign (1719), the French missionary
and enamel specialist, Jean-Baptiste Gravereau, also known
as Chen Zhongxin, was sent to Beijing by the Viceroy of
Guangdong to teach enamelling techniques to craftsmen
working in the Palace Workshops (see the catalogue to the
exhibition Treasures from Guangdong to the Qing Court, Art
Gallery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong,
1987, p. 54).
The present bowl captures the luxuriousness and exoticism
of the Western enamelling technique with the familiarity of
traditional Chinese floral motifs. Closely related examples,
with Kangxi yuzhi marks, include one in the Palace Museum,
Beijing, included in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the
Palace Museum. Metal-bodied Enamel Ware, Hong Kong, 2002,
pl. 177; one from the collection of Rev. Victor Farmer, sold at
Christie’s London, 8th June 2004, lot 467; another included in
the Min Chiu Society Thirtieth Anniversary Exhibition. Selected
Treasures of Chinese Art, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong
Kong, 1991, cat. no. 225, and subsequently sold at Christie’s
Hong Kong, 27th October 2003, lot 725; and a fourth bowl,
from the collection of Elizabeth Halsey Dock, sold twice in our
New York rooms, 1st June 1993, lot 101, and 24th March 1998,
lot 459, and a third time at Christie’s Hong Kong, 31st May
2010, lot 1863.
During the Kangxi reign, porcelain designs often drew
inspiration from the more developed palette and associated
design scheme of Beijing enamelled wares; compare Kangxi
yuzhi marked bowls of shallower form with related designs,
such as one, which even includes the stippled effect on the
petals, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included in the
Museum’s Special Exhibition of Famous Enamelled Painted
Wares of the Ch’ing Dynasty, Taipei, 1979, cat. no. 4.

IMPORTANT CHINESE ART 69