Lot 1175
Treasury 6, no. 1216 (‘Missing Immortals’)
HK$62,500

Famille rose enamels on colourless glaze on porcelain; with a flat lip and concave foot surrounded by a convex foot rim; moulded and painted with a continuous design of the emblems of the Eight Immortals, each beribboned (in the upper register are the gourd of Li Tieguai 李鐵拐, the leaf fan of Zhongli Quan 鐘離權; the fish-skin drum of Zhang Guolao 張果老, and the clapper boards of Cao Guojiu 曹國舅, and in the lower register, the basket of Lan Caihe 藍采和, containing peaches of immortality, with the flute of Han Xiangzi 漢湘子behind it, and the sword of Lü Dongbing 呂洞賓 together with the lotus flower of He Xiangu 何仙姑; as a bonus, the narrow sides feature the crutch of Li Tieguai and the hoe of Lan Caihe), all on a ground of interlocking-fylfot design, the shoulders with a band of formalized lingzhi beneath a band of continuous leiwen (‘thunder pattern’), the base with a border of formalized lotus petals; the foot inscribed in black enamel seal script, Jiaqing nian zhi 嘉慶年製(‘Made during the Jiaqing period’); the lip and foot rim painted gold; the interior unglazed
Imperial kilns, Jingdezhen, 1796–1820
Height: 5.78 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.62/1.81 cm
Stopper: gold and blue enamel on colourless glaze on porcelain, moulded with a formalized chrysanthemum design; probably not the original

Provenance:
Sotheby’s, Hong Kong, 28 October 1992, lot 444

Published:
Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, no. 163
Treasury 6, no. 1216

Exhibited:
Hong Kong Museum of Art, March–June 1994
National Museum of Singapore, November 1994–February 1995

Although the Eight Immortals themselves are absent, they are represented here by their attributes, which would have been so well known that the immortals themselves were incidental to the message as perceived by a mid-Qing audience. This kind of design is called an baxian 暗八仙, which might be translated ‘Implied Eight Immortals’.

This is an extremely rare variation on the popular subject, unusual for the design of the emblems and its monochrome ground. Even the small, compressed spherical form is atypical for Jiaqing moulded-porcelain bottles. In addition, the black enamel used for the mark is very rare for the group. As a rule, where an iron-red mark on a monochrome foot would not work well (as, for instance, on an iron-red monochrome), gold enamel was substituted. Either iron-red or gold would have worked here, raising the question of why black was used. It has been suggested that black reign marks were used at times of imperial mourning, but we have as yet seen no specific proof of this from the imperial records, and there are many indications that it was not a standard rule. Moreover, the colour of mourning in China is white, not black.

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.