A PAIR OF FINE RUBY-GROUND 'FAMILLE-ROSE' MEDALLION BOWLS SEAL MARKS AND PERIOD OF JIAJING

each finely potted with broad rounded sides rising from a short foot to a slightly everted rim, painted on the exterior in bright 'famille-rose' enamels with four circular medallions depicting the Bo gu ('Hundred Antiques') divided by pairs of floral and foliate sprigs, all reserved on a ruby ground decorated in sgraffiato technique with feathery foliate scrolls, the interior finely painted in underglaze blue with four beribboned canopied lanterns around a central stylised medallion, the base inscribed in underglaze blue with a six-character seal mark

Exquisitely enamelled with medallions enclosing lanterns on an ornately decorated ruby ground, bowls of this design were pioneered in the Qianlong period and grew in popularity in the succeeding Jiaqing and Daoguang reigns. The sophistication of bowls of this type is achieved through the intricate sgraffiato ground and the fusion of Western painting techniques with traditional Chinese motifs. The flowers adorning the ruby ground, masterfully rendered in various tones to create a naturalistic effect, reveal the influence of Jesuit painters at court, while the medallions contain auspicious lanterns, a motif that forms a homonym for ‘good harvest’ (fengdeng). These medallions resemble windows and create a sense of three-dimensionality, an effect that is reinforced through the textured and almost brocade-like tactility of the sgraffiato technique, a complicated and laborious method of needle-point etching. 

 

A closely related pair of bowls was sold at Christie’s London, 6^th June 1988, lot 109, again in these rooms, 29^th October 2001, lot 600, and a third time at Christie’s Hong Kong, 29^th May 2007, lot 1508. A yellow ground bowl similarly decorated with lantern medallions, with a Jiaqing mark and of the period but lacking the sgraffiato embellishment, was sold at Christie’s South Kensington, 9^th November 2012, lot 1122. Compare the Qianlong prototype to this bowl, such as one from the Silas Friedlander collection, sold at Christie’s New York, 24^th/25^th March 2011, lot 1807.

 

Bowls of this type are more commonly known with a Daoguang seal mark and of the period; for example see one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Porcelains with Cloisonné Enamel Decoration and Famille Rose Decoration, Hong Kong, 1999, pl. 216; one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, published in Suzanne G. Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics (2^nd ed.), New York, 1989, pl. 281; another form the collection of Simon Kwan, included in the exhibition Joined Colors, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., 1993, cat. no. 58; and a pair of bowls, from the Edward T. Chow collection, sold twice in these rooms, 19^th May 1981, lot 595, and 28^th April 1998, lot 841.