A LARGE CHINESE PAINTED ENAMEL DISH QIANLONG PERIOD (1736-1795)

拍品描述

A LARGE CHINESE PAINTED ENAMEL DISH QIANLONG PERIOD (1736-1795) Diameter: 26.5cm Of broad circular form with shallow rounded sides rising from a short foot to an everted rim bound in gilt copper, the dish painted in famille rose enamels on a white ground. The central medallion is occupied by a composition of flowering peony and prunus branches issuing from behind a pierced blue rockwork form, beside which are arranged a phoenix-headed ewer, a beribboned ruyi sceptre, a Buddha's-hand citron, and further auspicious objects tied with coloured cords. A pink bat hovers above among the blossoming branches. The central reserve is enclosed by a narrow blue line border and a broader band of stylised lotus scroll reserved on a yellow ground tooled with a fine scrolling pattern. The cavetto and rim are filled with a dense floral band of peony, chrysanthemum, prunus and other seasonal flowers borne on leafy stems against a pale lilac ground worked in close foliate diaper. A narrow band of blue key-fret runs around the outer edge of the rim. The painted programme is composed of standard rebus and emblem groupings drawn from the late Ming and Qing repertoire of auspicious imagery. The Buddha's-hand citron (foshou) puns on fu, blessing, and the bat (also fu) reinforces the wish; the ruyi sceptre carries the literal sense of "as you wish"; the peony stands for wealth and honour, the prunus for renewal and the turning of the year. The combination of bat, citron and ruyi among seasonal flowers is one of the more frequently encountered configurations of birthday and New Year wishes in eighteenth-century court and export production. The dense pink-ground floral border, with its mille-fleurs treatment of overlapping blossoms on a diapered ground, belongs to a manner of border painting that became closely associated with imperial enamel and porcelain wares produced for the Qianlong court and disseminated through the workshops of Guangzhou. Painted enamel on copper, known in Chinese as huafalang, was introduced into China through Jesuit channels at the Kangxi court in the late seventeenth century and developed into a fully accomplished medium under imperial patronage in the early eighteenth century. The technique requires the application of vitreous enamel pigments to a copper substrate prepared with a white enamel ground, fired at successively lower temperatures as each colour is added. Production was concentrated in two centres: the imperial enamel workshops within the Forbidden City, which supplied the throne, and the commercial workshops of Guangzhou (Canton), which supplied both the court and the foreign trade. The Guangzhou ateliers were largely responsible for the larger dishes, basins and chargers of the Qianlong period, where the broad surface called for the dense, all-over decorative schemes seen here. The use of a pale lilac or rose ground reserved with sprays of flowers is a hallmark of the mature Qianlong manner in this medium, drawing on the same palette as the famille rose porcelains being produced contemporaneously at Jingdezhen. This dish exemplifies the Qianlong taste in Cantonese painted enamel: a precise, densely organised surface in which a central group of auspicious emblems is framed by successive bands of disciplined floral ornament. It belongs to the well-defined class of large display dishes produced at Guangzhou for the domestic market and for diplomatic and export use, and shows the painted enamel medium handled at the scale and finish for which the Qianlong workshops were known.

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