Page 384 - Christies September 13 to 14th Fine Chinese Works of Art New York

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION
1378 The poem on this small dish, composed by the Jiaqing Emperor, praises the
pleasure of drinking tea and appears on tea trays and tea pots of diferent
A BLUE AND WHITE IMPERIALLY-INSCRIBED palettes. S.W. Bushell translates the poem in Oriental Ceramic Art, London,
QUADRILOBED TRAY 1981, p. 239, as:
JIAQING SEAL MARK SIX-CHARACTER IN
UNDERGLAZE BLUE AND OF THE PERIOD (1796-1820)
‘Finest tribute tea of the frst picking
With shallow rounded sides, the interior is inscribed with an Imperial poem And a bright full moon prompt a line of verse.
praising well-prepared tea, dated to the cyclical year of dingsi, corresponding
to 1797. The inscription is surrounded by bands of fower scroll, and sprays A lively fre glows in the bamboo stove,
of diferent fower scroll decorate the exterior. The water is boiling in the stone griddle,
Small bubbles rise like ears of fsh or crab.
6º in. (15.8 cm.) long
Of rare Chi’i-ch’iang tea, rolled into tiny balls,
$8,000-12,000 One cup is enough to lighten the heart,
And dissipate the early winter chill.’
PROVENANCE
The Weishaupt Collection. A similar blue and white tray is illustrated by H.A. Van Oort, Chinese
Sotheby’s Amsterdam, 16 October 1995, lot 1. Porcelain of the 19th and 20th Centuries, The Netherlands, 1977, p. 19, pl. 2.
Sotheby’s London, 6 November 2013, lot 14. Compare, also, the pair of dishes of this pattern and date sold at Christie’s
London, 15 May 2012, lot 395.
EXHIBITED
Frankfurt, Museum fur Kunsthandwerk, From the Dragon’s Treasure: Chinese 清嘉慶 青花御題詩海棠形盤 六字篆書款
Porcelain from the 19th and 20th Centuries in the Weishaupt Collection, 1987.
LITERATURE
G. Avitabile, From the Dragon’s Treasure: Chinese Porcelain from the 19th
and 20th Centuries in the Weishaupt Collection, London, 1987, no. 13.

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