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

拍品描述

A CHINESE PAINTED ENAMEL DISH, QIANLONG PERIOD (1736-1795) The shallow circular dish is finely worked in painted enamels, its broad, gently curving surface used as a continuous decorative field. The front is organised around a central roundel, enclosed by a floral border and set within a rich yellow-ground cavetto filled with a dense diaper pattern. The palette is characteristic of Qing painted enamel taste, combining rose-pink, iron-red, turquoise, green, aubergine and yellow with delicate black outlines. At the centre, two figures occupy a garden terrace before a pavilion interior, one presenting a flowering branch to a robed gentleman holding a staff. The scene is rendered with light, fluid drawing: red balustrades provide an architectural framework, while the canopy, lattice window, potted flowers and stepped platform give the composition a clear spatial setting. Around this roundel, scrolling flowers and foliage form a lively inner band, their loose asymmetry contrasting with the ordered yellow diaper ground beyond. The rim is further decorated with shaped cartouches containing flowering branches, birds, insects and butterflies, each reserved against the yellow ground. These panels introduce a courtly rhythm to the dish, alternating naturalistic studies with the geometric regularity of the surrounding ornament. The reverse is painted with a central phoenix and peony medallion, encircled by a pink ground scattered with prunus blossoms and crackled patterning, giving the underside an unusually finished decorative presence. Painted enamel wares of the Qianlong period reflect the Qing court’s taste for technically refined, brightly coloured surfaces and for the adaptation of pictorial subjects to functional forms. The combination of figural narrative, garden architecture, auspicious bird-and-flower imagery and elaborate diaper grounds places the dish within the decorative language of eighteenth-century Chinese enamel production, where intimate scale and surface complexity were closely aligned. This dish is a finely composed example of Qianlong-period painted enamel, balancing narrative charm, ornamental density and carefully articulated colour across both front and reverse. Diameter: 21.5 cm

图片