QP28 A “Mandarin garden scene” vase, Yongzheng, Qing Dynasty

Descrizione

Description:   Chinese porcelain vase of semi-eggshell type and rare shape, bearing a decoration of the highest grade, representing a Mandarin in a garden, surrounded by elegant ladies, assistants, and playing boys.  This vase is severely broken, but still, it is a pleasure to look at it, due to the quality of the painting and the scene, depicting a wealthy mandarin seated on a wheel chair in his garden, surrounded by seven ladies and eleven boys of various ages. A rich and expressive painting, well capturing human joy. Well represented here is the unrivalled elegance of Yongzheng ladies. Many details are interesting under the point of view of documenting the life of high classes in 18^th Century’s China, as the objects held by the boys, or the lighting device seen in the last picture of the details. The lady is firing the pipe of the man with a device consisting of two parts holding a glowing ember or a slow burning material, with a cord for swinging it through the air to make it burn harder. Vases with this shape, semi-eggshell potting of this size, peel orange glaze and high-quality decoration are very rare, either dated to Yongzheng or early Qianlong, being the Yongzheng ones ever rarer. This one is no doubt Yongzheng due to the style of the ladies and the many flaws of the thick polychrome enamels (see the pictures of the details) typical of earlier polychromes. Strangely, none of the very few vases known of this type is bearing a mark, despite being the decoration of imperial grade.

Dating:  18^th century, Yongzheng period

Size:  39 cm high

Provenance:  Antiquarian market.

References:  The shape of this vase is rare. The last pictures are showing a pair of vases with the same shape, and of very high quality, but of the Qianlong period.

Notes:  We found this vase at the shop of an antiquarian, who thought that it was Japanese and not Chinese. Because of the damage, it was heavily restored and the “restorer” hided the damages by adding an incredible quantity of elements, making it crazily crowded. Now you see that there is a fan. The restorer did paint six more fans, for hiding the cracks. And the trees had almost the double of the original leaves and branches, again covering the damaged areas. And many bigger bats. Really crowded; luckily, the cleaning brings back the original decoration.