Lot 206
Treasury 6, no. 1090 (‘Introducing the Frog’)
HK$162,500

Famille rose enamels on translucent white glass; with a flat lip and protruding flat foot; painted on each main side with a frog in a lotus pond; the foot inscribed in iron-red regular script Guyue xuan (‘Ancient Moon Pavilion’)
Imperial, palace workshops, Beijing, 1767–1780
Height: 5.75 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.6/1.5 cm
Stopper: jadeite

Provenance:
Gerry P. Mack (1965)
Margaret Prescott Wise (no. 186)
Edgar and Roberta Wise (1995)
Robert Kleiner (1996)

Published:
Treasury 6, no. 1090

Sale 3, lot 90, and Sale 5, lot 99, were made in or shortly after 1767, while the single-plane, classic Guyue xuan wares (represented by Treasury 6, nos. 1097-1099) probably evolved during the 1770s or early 1780s. These led before long to the double-plane wares combining relief carving with enamelling, (Sale 1, lot 135, Sale 2, lot 77, and Sale 3, lot 138, among others). The classic wares probably continued in production until the death of the Qianlong emperor in 1799. His successor, the Jiaqing emperor, with scant interest in artistic production as a whole and in enamels in particular (if surviving wares are anything to go by), saw no reason to continue production of wares bearing a hall name associated so intimately with his father.

The present example represents a small subgroup that is a transitional stage between the early experimental wares and the classic Guyue xuan wares.
The palette used here is slightly extended from the previous group, and a little more sophisticated. The iron red is both applied as a pale wash on its own for some blades of grass and mixed with yellow (by painting the iron red over the yellow in the traditional palace-workshop style) for the edge of the ageing leaf. Otherwise, it carries echoes of the earlier type in the simplicity of the painting; the iron-red outlines to the ruby-pink flowers; the dotting of the ground and stems of the lotus, and the detailing of the leaves. Even the frog is dotted. This lotus style is very obviously derived from earlier Qianlong palace style.

There is evidence of earlier wear running beneath the enamels here, suggesting either that they were painted on an already old and well-used bottle, or that in preparation for enamelling the glass was treated with some sort of abrasive, either to clean it or to prepare the surface for the enamels.

This is not the Sotheby’s sale catalogue. This is a product of Hugh Moss for the purposes of this website. For the catalogue details please refer to Sotheby’s website or request a copy of a printed sale catalogue from Sotheby’s.