A famille verte Gu shaped vase, Qing dynasty, Kangxi (1662-1722).
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Composed of three sections, rising from a flared slightly tapering base to a more rounded mid-section and again to a wide-open mouth. The decoration varies within each section of the vase. On the lower section are painted a number of objects from the “Hundred Antiques” whilst the mid-section is a vivid garden scene showing court ladies in a pavilion observing the poet Pan Yue who is being wheeled in a sedan chair pushed by attendants. Pan Yue (247 – 300 AD) was a poet whose name in Chinese became a byword for handsome men. The “Book of Jin” says that Pan was so handsome that women surrounded him whenever he went out on an excursion, throwing gifts of fans, scarfs and fruits. Here the women can be seen trying to catch a glimpse of the handsome poet, who nevertheless is inaccessible to them, divided by the open space. Height 45,7 cm.
Restored chips. Restorations to the underside of the base.
Provenance
Purchased from the Estate of Peter Terian, Sotheby’s New York, January 2009.
Peter Terian was a co-founder of Rallye Motors, one of North America’s most prestigious car dealerships and served as its president until his death in 2002. He was a renowned collector of art, who frequently loaned significant pieces to museums worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he served as a William Cullen Bryant fellow.
The Avalon Collection.
This collection, which in the main focuses on the Interregnum and Kangxi periods has been both carefully and sensitively formed over the last twenty-five years. The collector, a member of the English Oriental Ceramic Society, has assembled the collection with an eye for provenance whilst purchasing from old European collections, well-established antique dealers and at auction.
Academically, the pieces have been well researched both in terms of their symbolism and narrative themes. In many instances the imagery on the pieces has been referenced to episodes in the romantic and historic novels of Chinese mythology, which were used extensively in the decoration of seventeenth century Chinese porcelain.
Literature
The same motif can be seen on a vase in “Chinese Ceramics in the Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: The Ming and Qing Dynasties” by Christiaan J A Jorg, Page 150-151, No 161 and on a plate in “ The Catalogue of the George Eumorfopoulos Collection of Chinese, Korean and Persian Pottery and Porcelain – Volume V”, by R L Hobson, ref E89.
More information
The shape of the vessel is based on an archaic bronze vessel known as a Gu, which was originally used to offer sacrificial wine to one’s ancestors during the Shang and Western Zhou periods.
Pan Yue (247 – 300 AD) was a poet whose name in Chinese became a byword for handsome men. The “Book of Jin” says that Pan was so handsome that women surrounded him whenever he went out on an excursion, throwing gifts of fans, scarfs and fruits.