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A Pair of Famille-Rose Porcelain Bowls & Saucers

Diameter of bowls: 13.6 cm. (5/3/8 in.)Height of bowls: 5.7 cm. (2 1/4 in.)Diameter of saucers: 15.2 cm. (6 in.)Height of saucers: 3.2 cm. (1 1/3 in.)

Qing dynasty, Daoguang period A.D. 1821-1850

Each inscribed: Daqing Daoguang nianzhi, "Made in the Daoguang years of the Great Qing [dynasty]"

Provenance: A private American collection

Each bowl and saucer is enamelled with a complex lotus and fruit pattern. On the exteriors are four pink lotuses suspending turquoise chimes alternating with four groups of peach, finger citron and pomegranate clusters, all surrounded by scrolling vine tendrils, the tendrils that flank the lotus groups emanating from small dragon mouths, the dragon bodies also formed as vine tendrils. The design is executed in dark outlines and filled-in with a pot-pourri of colors, some with shading, others filling the motif evenly, some abutting white held in reserve, and including a fresh green, lime green, turquoise, cobalt blue, pink, yellow and a matte red. The main décor on the bowls is bordered by a pink-and-blue petal collar around the foot and linked ruyi bands in two shades of pink against a turquoise ground beneath the mouth rim. The interiors of the bowl and saucers are decorated with a dense pattern consisting of a central floret surrounded by four blue bats alternating with peaches and lotus enclosed by a gilt line border. A further floral and fruit scroll is enamelled beneath the rims on the interiors. Each foot rim is unglazed revealing the refined white porcelain and surrounds a reign mark on the recessed base written in seal script in red enamel within a square cartouche reading Daqing Daoguang nianzhi, "Made in the Daoguang years of the Great Qing [dynasty]."

24.

cont. on p. 197

Pair of saucers

粉彩花紋瓷碗盤二雙

碗徑：13.6 厘米碗高：5.7 厘米盤徑：15.2 厘米盤高：3.2 厘米清道光款：「大清道光年製」

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By the 19th centur y when the present porcelains were created, the meanings of all elements of the design had been well established and taken for granted and the motifs used over the board in the applied arts to achieve a single goal: decorative charm. The gathering of the three specific kinds of fruit is referred to as the "Three Abundances." The finger citron is known popularly as a "Buddha hand," as it resembles a hand position or mudra of the Buddha; the peach is from the Daoist world where the fruit is consumed as a way to eternity; and the pomegranate is embraced by Confucians as a symbol and wish for numerous progeny. The three worlds of Chinese religious and philosophical belief are also combined in the complex lotus motif: a Buddhist lotus symbolizing purity with a vase for holy water and a dangling chime, the name of which, qing, also means to celebrate or congratulate, f lanked by the colorful dragons that descend from a complex integrated world of

Daoism and Confucianism. The lotus, dragon and "Three Abundances" are joined by the images of bats on the interiors. These creatures are auspicious since the character for bat, fu, is a homonym for fu, "happiness" or "good fortune."

The decorators had at hand a palette of colors that could not be reined in when the goal was decorative charm. It is interesting that such light-hearted wares were produced in a world that was no less than a disaster zone: opium, Christianity, Europeans and a demeaning war from without; a crumbling bureaucracy and economy and widespread peasant unrest and uprisings from within. The two don’t jibe: the historical reality of a collapsing regime and the festive spirit of the porcelains. Sadly, the Qing dynasty and its supporters were completely without effective solutions to their problems, whereas the potters at Jingdezhen somehow, despite everything that was going on around them, managed elegant solutions to theirs.

cont. of cat. 24: A Pair of Overglaze-Enameled Porcelain Bowls & Saucers