Lot 106

Lot 106
Treasury 6, no. 1383

Xianfeng Tribute

Colourless glaze on cobalt on porcelain; with a convex lip and recessed, slightly concave circular foot surrounded by a protruding convex circular footrim; painted under the glaze with a continuous scene of eight foreign tribute bearers set out in two registers, riding various animals, including an elephant, a horse, a deer, what may be intended as an ox, and four obviously mythical creatures, the figures holding sprigs of coral, boxes, a rhinoceros horn, a pearl, an ivory tusk, a lingzhi, a staff, and another object, perhaps a scroll; the neck with a band of formalized lingzhi; the foot inscribed in regular script Da Qing Xianfeng nian zhi (‘Made in the Xianfeng reign of the Qing dynasty’); the lip, inner neck, and interior glazed
Jingdezhen, 1851–1855
Height: 8 cm
Mouth/lip: 0.7/1.4 cm
Stopper: glass

Lot 106 Provenance:
John Ault, June 2005
Robert Kleiner, June 2005

Published:
Hong Kong 1977, no. 86
Ault 1993, p. 9, fig. 71
Treasury 6, no. 1383

Lot 106 Commentary
Some of the items of tribute are difficult to identify, especially without comparison with other depictions that are clearer. The mythical animals upon which some of the tribute bearers ride are equally variable, and wonderfully strange, as befits a mythical beast. The four that do not resemble real creatures are leonine as a group, but distinguish themselves by sporting a single horn (xiezhi), two horns (baize), or none. They may be Buddhist lions with unusually long legs – and an earnest, bug-eyed goofiness that would do credit to an early Disney cartoon.

This bottle, possessing the reign mark, is one of the examples that help us to date the entire group with greater accuracy, as Ault pointed out in his 1993 article. Since we can conclude from the reign marks that this was an imperial bottle, we may also assume that it was not made after 1855, when the imperial kilns were destroyed, not to be rebuilt until after the end of the Xianfeng reign.