A PAIR OF WHITE JADE CHRYSANTHEMUM BOWLS LATE QING DYNASTY

each with thin rounded sides, carved as a radiating floral bloom with fluted petals, gently rising to an everted rim of lobed outline, resting on a slightly flared  petal-form foot with further overlapping petals detailed underside, the stone suffused with milky inclusions and a single opaque inclusion incorporated into the composition (2)

Private New Jersey Collection.
Sotheby's New York, 19th March 1997, lot 46.

These fine, thinly worked jades with foliate motifs were particularly favored by the Qianlong emperor. His taste for them seems to have been inspired by the jades made during the rule of the great Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (1627-58) a group of which were gifted to the emperor in tribute. The Qianlong emperor's enthusiasm for this thin, transparent carving of jade served as the impetus for local production of the 'mughal-style' jades of the 18th and 19th centuries.

The chrysanthemum pattern, of which jade examples were carved in form of dishes and covered boxes as well, is originally derived from a Song dynasty lacquer form. Additionally there are sets of monochromatic porcelain dishes and bowls of this pattern that were ordered by both the Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors. For a jade example of this pattern, see a spinach-green jade dish carved with rows of fluted petals radiating from the center in the Palace Museum Collection, Beijing, illustrated in Zhongguo Meishu Quanji, Jade, vol. 9, Beijing, p. 176, no. 305.