M5792

Hair crack and tiny rim nibble.

• From the collection of Gustaf Oscar Wallenberg (1865-1937) and thence by descent.

Wallenberg was a famous Swedish businessman, a diplomat and active politician. He was the son of André Oscar Wallenberg, founder of Stockholms Enskilda Bank, today known as SEB. After a career in the Swedish navy, he was very active in the trans-Oceanic shipping industry. He was an envoy to Tokyo between 1907 and 1918, and during this time he travelled to Beijing to amend the Treaty of Canton and to establish diplomatic relations between Sweden and the Qing court. His entire oriental art collection was believed to have been purchased during these years, with documents preserved at the Ӧstasiatiska Museum, Stockholm.

He was the grandfather of Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg (1912-1945), the architect, businessman and diplomat, designated by Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, as one of the ‘righteous among nations’ as well as having many monuments and streets named after him, in honour of him saving thousands of Jews in German-occupied Hungary during World War Two. The family art collection was split between the Stockholm museum and family members.

• This dish is part of a rare group with an unusual six-character mark of Qianlong, rather than the more typical sea lmark, indicating that this is perhaps the first production of Qianlong imperial reign mark pieces, circa 1735/6, as stylistically the characters, particularly the nian character, closely resemble those written in the Yongzheng period.
• A similar dish with a white-glazed rim, bearing the more typical seal mark of Qianlong, is illustrated by Liu Liong-yu in Ch’ing Official and Popular Wares, p. 205; another in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, British Museum, is illustrated by Stacey Pierson in A Collector’s Vision: Ceramics for the Qianlong Emperor, no. 89, p. 102.