Lot 1127
Treasury 5, no.1038 (‘Ziren’s Discretion’)
HK$87,500

Transparent ruby-red glass and translucent white glass; with a flat lip and recessed, slightly convex foot surrounded by a protruding rounded foot rim; carved as a single overlay with some carving in the ground colour with, on one main side, branches of a blossoming peach tree, and on the other with a swimming duck with fallen blossoms around it, inscribed in relief seal script, Ziren 子仁
Yangzhou, 1800-1880
Height: 5.11 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.6/1.3 cm
Stopper: coral; pearl finial; turquoise collar

Provenance:
Robert Kleiner (1989)

Published:
Kleiner, Yang, and Shangraw 1994, no. 129
Treasury 5, no.1038

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

We have not yet been able to identify Ziren. A representative of the rarer group with carving in the ground colour, this is among the most restrained bottles from the Yangzhou school. The decoration in the ground colour is composed of engraved lines only, delineating the water in which the duck swims. This is a feature of the school found more often than is indicated by the bottles in this collection. Otherwise the use of the overlay colour is sparing to the point of reticence, as illustrated by a rare foot rim in the ground colour. This feature is encountered so rarely in the school’s finest works that our suspicions were immediately aroused concerning the possibility that a coloured foot rim might have been removed. There is, however, no sign of one, what remains being small but perfectly formed and entirely in keeping with the restraint of the decoration.

There a very similar bottle, decorated with the same subject of ducks, from the J & J Collection (Moss, Graham, and Tsang 1993, no. 404) that has a red overlay foot, but of similarly restrained, shallow profile. In any case, an unusual foot is perhaps what we should expect here, since the design and use of the overlay are also unusual. On the side featuring branches of blossoming peach picked out in the contrasting overlay colour, it is very discreetly used, leaving part of the design in the ground colour. On the reverse, with the magnificently restrained duck, the contrasting overlay is confined to its beak, eye, and leg, three blossoms—one in mid-flight—and the signature. The balance, as with so many of the finest examples attributable to Yangzhou with carving in the ground colour, is beyond reproach.

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.