Page 94 - Bonham's Asian Art London November 2015

231 The mark 大雅齋 daya zhai, ‘Studio of the Greater Odes’, is strongly
A RARE GRISAILLE-ENAMELLED YELLOW-GROUND DAYAZHAI associated with the Dowager Empress Cixi. Although no such hall
BALUSTER VASE has been located, a framed wooden plaque has been found in the
Yong qing chang chun, Tian di yi jia chun and Dayazhai marks, Imperial Workshops bearing the three characters and with a seal
Guangxu reading 天地一家春 tiandi yijia chun, ‘The Whole World celebrating as
The unusually large vase of elegant baluster form and enamelled in One Family’. G. Xingkuan and W. Guangyao in Guanyang Yuci, Beijing
grisaille around the body with leafy sprays of fruiting wisteria entwined 2007, pp.145-147 suggest that the distinctive porcelain services
around slender branches on which a single singing bird perches, the bearing the daya zhai mark were commissioned for the rebuilding
branches surrounding the three-character hallmark in iron-red, and a of the Yuanmingyuan that commenced in 1873 during the reign of
five-character seal mark enclosed by a border of two dragons pursuing Tongzhi. However, R. Scott in For Her Majesty’s Pleasure - Dayazhai
a flaming pearl, the applied handles each shaped as a stylised blue- Porcelain, Christie’s Hong Kong, 3 December 2008, p.23, suggests
enamelled elephant suspending gilt ring-handles from its trunk, the that the porcelains were not produced until the Guangxu reign. Since
neck with four grisaille lotus blossoms on a continuous foliate meander, the restoration of the Yuanmingyuan had been delayed by this time,
two beneath a pendent bat and all beneath a band of ruyi head at the the vessels would have simply been delivered to the Forbidden City
rim. instead.
57.4cm (22 5/8in) high Normally seen as a moment of renewed quality in Imperial porcelain
production, Dayazhai wares continued to be produced into the very
£40,000 - 50,000 last years of the Qing Dynasty. The present lot seems to belong to a
CNY390,000 - 480,000 group of large archaic-form vases with Dayazhai palette enamelling
HK$470,000 - 590,000 that date to the early 20th century. The combination of grisaille
enamelling and the red ‘seal mark’ lends the main decorative band a
Provenance scholarly feel, evoking monochrome ink painting, and the design was
An English private collection. reputedly taken from Cixi’s own compositions of birds and flowers.
The massive vase itself is of archaic form, modelled after a Spring and
Autumn period bronze vase, hu, and further embellished with archaistic
borders at the shoulder. Porcelain versions of this form are first seen
in the mid-18th century, compare the present lot with an Imperial
blue and white hu vase, Qianlong seal mark and of the period, in the
National Palace Museum collection, illustrated in Blue and White Wares
of the Ch’ing Dynasty II, Taiwan, pl. 2.

Compare a pair of fishbowls, Guangxu, decorated in a similar palette
sold in these rooms, 8 November 2012, lot 110.

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