A rare large famille-rose 'chrysanthemum and butterfly' dish, Mark and period of Yongzheng | 清雍正 粉彩過墻蝶戀花紋大盤 《大清雍正年製》款

Sotheby's London, 7th January 1964, lot 93.

Collection of Dr Wou Kiuan (1910-1997).

Wou Lien-Pai Museum, 1968-present, coll. no. Q.5.14.

倫敦蘇富比1964年1月7日，編號93

吳權博士 (1910-1997) 收藏

吳蓮伯博物院，1968年至今，編號Q.5.14

Rose Kerr et al., Chinese Antiquities from the Wou Kiuan Collection. Wou Lien-Pai Museum, Hong Kong, 2011, pl. 137.

柯玫瑰等，《Chinese Antiquities from the Wou Kiuan Collection. Wou Lien-Pai Museum》，香港，2011年，圖版137

Exquisitely decorated with pink, red and yellow chrysanthemum flowers in bloom growing alongside bamboo, and with butterflies in flight above, this large charger demonstrates the innovative enamel designs introduced during the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor. It belongs to a group of large Yongzheng period dishes, each brilliantly painted with a unique asymmetrical arrangement of flowering or fruiting branches rising from the foot and continuing over the rim onto the interior in a technique referred to as changzha (‘long branch’), a homophone of the phrase 'Eternal Governance'. A particular request by the Yongzheng Emperor preserved in the records of the Zhaobanchu, the workshops of the Imperial Household Department, reflect his interest in the changzha design: '19th day, 4th month, Yongzheng 9th year [1731]...His Majesty ordered to take glazed and unglazed porcelain and point on it the enamelled designs of Everlasting Tranquillity and Eternal Governance', see Feng Xianming, Annotated Collection of Historical Documents on Ancient Chinese Ceramics, Taipei, 2000, p. 222. 

Porcelain changzha dishes of the Yongzheng period are notable for their painterly style. The painting of chrysanthemum flowers follows the style of one of China’s most celebrated artists, Yun Shouping (1633-1690), one of the ‘Six Masters’ of the early Qing period. Yun’s distinctive painting style is associated with flower paintings in the mogu, ‘boneless’, style that emphasises washes instead of lines. The Yongzheng Emperor’s fondness for Yun’s work resulted in the copying of his paintings on ceramics, creating floral designs that were elegant and vibrant.

The composition of chrysanthemum, bamboo and butterflies is rare, and only a small number of chargers of this same design are known, each with slight variations in the positioning of the butterflies. Compare two chargers in the Umezawa Kinenkan Museum in Tokyo, one of which is illustrated in Sakai Toji Zenshu, vol. 46, Tokyo, 1973, pl. 67, and both were included in the exhibition Umezawa kinenkan shozō [Qing dynasty ceramics from the collection of the Umezawa Memorial Museum], MOA, Atami, cat. nos 30-31. A third dish was included in the sale The Collection of Chinese and Other Far Eastern Art Assembled by Yamanaka & Co., New York, 1943, no. 1165 (left), where it is shown on an elaborate gilt-metal stand, was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 29th October 1991, lot 264.

Chargers of this type are more commonly found with prunus, peony and camellia. See one in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing illustrated in Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, Hong Kong, 1989, pl. 51; one in the Shanghai Museum illustrated in Chugoku toji zenshu [Complete book of Chinese ceramics], vol. 21, Kyoto, 1981, pl. 88; another in the Baur Collection, Geneva, illustrated in John Ayers, Chinese Ceramics in the Baur Collection, vol. 2, Geneva, 1999, pl. 221; and a fourth in the Percival David Collection in the British Museum, illustrated in Michel Beurdeley and Guy Raindre, Qing Porcelain. Famille Verte, Famille Rose, London, 1987, pl. 130. A further example from the collection of Dr John Eyre is illustrated in G.C. Williamson, The Book of Famille Rose, London, 1927, pl. XXXV (center).