Page 294 - Christies King St. FINE CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART

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A PEACHBLOOM-GLAZED BRUSH WASHER, TANGLUO XI
KANGXI SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE AND OF THE PERIOD (1662-1722)

清康熙 豇豆紅釉鏜鑼洗 六字楷書款

Both the interior and exterior of the compressed globular vessel are covered in a soft crushed strawberry-
red glaze, containing pale yellow areas and splashes of green.

4√ in. (12.3 cm.) diam.

£20,000-30,000 $31,000-46,000
€28,000-41,000

The current brush washer belongs to a group of vessels referred to as the badama, ‘Eight Great (mark)
Numbers’. This group was previously thought to comprise a total of eight difering shapes. John Ayers
identifed a possible ninth form of the group by pointing out the existence of two slightly diferent
globular water pots. The frst is termed as a pingguo zun, ‘apple jar’, modelled with a gently inward
curving mouth rim; and the other with a raised, low, neck that maybe referred to as a shi liu, or
‘pomegranate jar’. See, J. Ayers, ‘The ‘Peachbloom Wares of the Kangxi Period (1662-1722), Transactions
of the Oriental Ceramic Society, vol. 64, 1999-2000, p. 49.

A similar brush washer is in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, illustrated with a group of
peachbloom-glazed vessels made for the scholar’s table, including a beehive water pot, illustrated by S.
Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1989, rev. ed., p. 237, no. 236. Other examples of
Kangxi-marked brush washers of this type were sold at Christie’s New York, 15 September 2009,
lot 445, and from the Y.C. Chen Collection, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 29 May 2013, lot 1905.

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