Lot 138
Treasury6, no. 1134 (‘Borrowed Symbolism’)
HK$375,000

Famille rose enamels on copper, with gold; with a convex lip and protruding flat foot surrounded by a flattened footrim; painted with a continuous European scene of a well-dressed, portly man with a walking stick standing with three sheep, and with a woman and a youth, also with a stick, a dog reclining beside them, beneath two trees in a mountainous waterside landscape with distant buildings; the shoulders with a band of formalized design loosely based on leiwen (‘thunder pattern’) beneath a band of pendant, formalized petals and a band of floral diaper pattern; the neck with a band of scrolling, formalized floral design; the foot inscribed in blue regular script Qianlong nian zhi (‘Made during the Qianlong period’); the interior covered with white enamel; all exposed metal gilt
Imperial, attributable to Guangzhou, 1760–1795
Height: 7.25 cm
Mouth/lip: 1.00/1.45 cm
Stopper: gilt bronze, chased with a formalized floral design

Provenance:
Sotheby’s, New York, 2 December 1985, lot 124
Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd. (1985)

Published:
JICSBS, Winter 1985, p. 31
Kleiner 1987, no. 11
Treasury 6, no. 1134

Exhibited:
Sydney L. Moss Ltd., London, October 1987
Creditanstalt, Vienna, May–June 1993

This and Sale 3, lot 43 represent a puzzling group of imperial Qianlong enamels. Their technical mastery exhibits a generally high and often impeccable level of control and is accompanied by impressive substantiality of both metal and enamel, balanced by thick gilding. Artistic quality is not up to the finest of paintings from the palace workshops in the Qianlong period, but is mostly impressive nonetheless. This example represents the best of the group, both technically and artistically; other examples are occasionally not as well painted. Although the composition, colouring, and landscape settings are in part very impressive, close examination of the figure and animal painting reveals some shortcomings, particularly obvious in the drawing of some of the faces and other anatomical details. As fine as they are, these scenes are clearly not quite in a class artistically with the masterpieces that came out of the palace workshops at Beijing during the first half of the Qianlong reign.

The blue Qianlong reign marks that appear on the vast majority of the snuff bottles correspond to a series of similar reign marks on larger vessels, large numbers of which do remain in the imperial collection, and are very neatly drawn.

A number of features suggest Guangzhou as the likely origin of this group of wares. The elongated, compressed ovoid form seen here is typical of Guangzhou, not Beijing, nor does the style of painting fit comfortably into any of the existing Beijing groups or even relate to them closely enough to suggest a connection. It is likely that they were produced by one team of enamellers, perhaps dominated by a single artist, who worked for a number of years producing works for the court; this team probably inspired, or was inspired by, the other artists making the related wares. Another indication of a likely Guangzhou provenance is found in the use of white enamel rather than turquoise blue for the interiors.

Although the scene here is European, it plays to its Chinese imperial audience by adding the popular symbol of three goats, forming the multi-layered rebus sanyang kaitai which refers to the coming of spring and renewed prosperity.

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.