Footnotes

• Provenance: acquired in Europe by a Swedish collector in the 1920s-30s
  A Swedish private collection
  
  Enamelled wares bearing 'yuzhi' marks (which may be translated as 'made for Imperial use of...') suggest a closer relationship with the Imperial court than those bearing the more standard 'nian zhi' marks. Such marks were first seen on wares enamelled in the Imperial workshops of the Forbidden City, in overglaze blue or pink enamel. The earliest porcelain wares bearing these marks are believed to have been produced in the Palace workshops in Beijing before 1716.
  
  Towards the end of the Kangxi period, it was decided that some of the porcelain wares initially enamelled in the Imperial palaces should be made at Jingdezhen. Because the southern enamellers were not yet familiar with the new famille rose palette, they continued to use the more traditional wucai enamels to which they were accustomed, using iron-red for the ground as it most closely resembled the ruby-red ground produced in the north. They also painted their marks in the more standard technique of underglaze blue. Hugh Moss expounds in By Imperial Command: An Introduction to Ch'ing Imperial Painted Enamels, Hong Kong, 1976: given the similarities between this group of 'Kangxi yuzhi'-marked bowls, and those bearing 'Yongzheng yuzhi' marks, and the fact that both bear the same decoration, it is extremely likely that the date of production falls within the last couple of years of the Kangxi Emperor's reign, See ibid., p.82 and pl.75 for a Yongzheng period example.
  
  For further bowls in this group, see one formerly in the C.T.Loo, Charles Russell and Paul Bernat collections, currently in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, illustrated by H.Moss, ibid., pl.74 (see text p.82). Another pair from this group, formerly in the T.Y.Chao collection, and sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 30 May 2006, lot 1258 is illustrated by R.Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, Volume Four (II), London, 2010, pp.248-9, no.1724. Another single bowl from the Kunstindustrimueet in Oslo, Norway is illustrated in Daae Samlingen, Oslo, 1990, p.26 and back cover. Another pair from the E.T.Chow collection, sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 25 November 1980, lot 143, is illustrated in: Chinese Porcelain. The S.C.Ko Tianminlou Collection, Hong Kong, 1987, Catalogue no.89. Another single example in the Shanghai Museum is illustrated by Wang Qingzheng, Kangxi Porcelain Wares from the Shanghai Museum Collection, Shanghai, 1998, fig.95.
  
  The pair to this bowl was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 24 November 2010, lot 257.

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Category: Asian Art / Chinese Works of Art

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