17 – M5247/8
Description
Pair of Chinese imperial porcelain famille rose enamelled conical flower-form bowls and covers, gai wan, with six petals, painted with pairs of sky-blue and turquoise enamelled five-clawed dragons with open mouths in pursuit of yellow and iron-red flaming pearls amongst ruyi-clouds and flames above crested and foaming waves, repeated on the rims of the covers.
Each base with a six-character mark of Yongzheng within a double ring in underglaze blue and of the period, 1723-1735.
The bowls 7 ¾ inches, 19.7 cm diameter, the covers 8 inches, 20.3 cm diameter.
Provenance & Additional Information
- From the collection of Captain Charles Oswald Liddell (1854-1941).
- Captain Charles Oswald Liddell was born in 1854 in Edinburgh and moved to China for family business between 1877 and He married Elizabeth Birt in 1880 in the Anglican Cathedral in Shanghai, and thereby inherited Birt’s Wharf there, expanding the business to Hangzhou, Tianjin and Harbin. In 1908 he collaborated with A. W. Bahr in an exhibition in Shanghai and was chairman of the North China branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. His descriptions for the exhibition were printed by A. W. Bahr in Old Chinese Porcelain and Works of Art in China, 1911. His entire collection, except for three pieces, was formed while trading in China over a forty- year period, and a number were purchased from significant sources, particularly a large group from the collection of Prince Chun, the last regent of the Qing dynasty, and from the collection of the private secretary and adviser to Li Hong Zhang. In May to June 1929 Bluett and Sons Ltd. offered part of the collection, and published a catalogue titled The Liddell Collection of Old Chinese Porcelain, with 229 entries.
- Sold by Bluett and Sons in their exhibition of The Liddell Collection of Old Chinese Porcelain, London, June 1929, no. 196, p. 22.
- From the collection of A. Parry (1879-1946), purchased at the above exhibition, 12th June 1929, and thence by descent.
- Sold by Bonhams London in their auction of The Parry Collection of Chinese Art, 2nd November 2021, lot 43.
- All Yongzheng conical dragon bowls and covers recorded of this size and design are painted in doucai enamels with a green and yellow The spacing and overall design is identical and most of the marks on this group also appear similar. A pair, gift of the B. Y. Lam Foundation (collection no. 74.54) in the Art Gallery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, are illustrated by Cheng Xiaozhong and Peter Y. K. Lam in Qing Imperial Porcelain of the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong Reigns, Nanjing, 1995, no. 52.
- A similar doucai bowl and cover in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is illustrated by He Li in Chinese Ceramics A New Comprehensive Survey, New York, 1996, 611, where the author notes that, “this shape, with the cover and bowl in identical form, takes its name from the “sky matches the earth” bowl [illustrated by Geng Baochang in Ming-Qing Ciqi Jianding, Hong Kong, 1993, fig. 13, p. 242, illustrated p. 414]. The cover has a footring on the top which allows it to be used as a bowl when removed and inverted”.
- The five-clawed dragon is the symbol of the emperor, of which there are twelve symbols. The dragon is also the fifth of the symbolic creatures of the twelve terrestrial branches and is recognised as an emblem of goodness and power.
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