Page 93 - 2019 October Important Chinese Ceramics Sotheby's Hong Kong

he present bowl is a superb example of Yongzheng doucai porcelain in its clever manipulation of a restricted palette to create a
variety of colours and textures. The doucai technique of drawing in underglaze-blue outlines and colouring in enamel washes,
T traditionally made use of the wucai (famille-verte) palette but later also incorporated fencai (famille-rose) enamels. The colour
scheme used on this bowl is particularly interesting; only one of the fruiting branches, that of the pomegranates, uses a rose-pink enamel
but not in the typical fencai combination with an opaque white, but superimposed on yellow. This has created a most original tone which
is otherwise very rarely seen and suggests an early date in the Yongzheng reign. Furthermore the stippled iron red in the fruit enhances its
sense of three dimensionality while endowing it with a naturalistic texture.
A pair of closely related bowls, from the collection of Sam’l C. Davis, was sold separately in our New York rooms, 27th November 1990,
lot 190 and 26th November 1991, lot 356, the latter published in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 4, pt.
II, London, 2010, pl. 1749, and sold in these rooms, 7th April 2011, lot 7. Three further bowls were sold in these rooms, a pair, 15th May
1990, lot 286; and a single bowl, 11th April 2008, lot 2834.
The design of fruiting branches references two of the Yongzheng Emperor’s passions: his reverence of antiquity and his love of auspicious
symbols, both of which surrounded his residences and belongings. The present design, with sprays of fruiting finger citron, lychee and
pomegranate, represents a variation of the auspicious sanduo (‘three abundances’) motif, as harbingers of endless long life, an abundance
of offspring and plentiful blessings. The pomegranate bursting with seeds symbolises the wish for plentiful offspring; the lychee, with
its Chinese name, lizhi, is homophonous with the phrase ‘establish a son’ (lizi) and represents abundance of offspring; and the finger
citron, often referred to as ‘the Buddha’s hand’ is an emblem of longevity, happiness and good fortune. They have been rendered in
a style reminiscent of Chenghua doucai prototypes in an acknowledgement of the technique pioneered during the Ming Emperor’s
reign; compare a bowl decorated with medallions of fruiting branches, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included in the Special
Exhibition of Ch’eng-hua Porcelain Ware, 1465-1487, Taipei, 2003, cat. no. 151.

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