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Cohen & Cohen: 50 Years of Chinese Export Porcelain

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A PAIR OF NODDING-HEAD LADIES AS CANDLEHOLDERS Qianlong period, circa 1745 (2) image 1

A PAIR OF NODDING-HEAD LADIES AS CANDLEHOLDERS Qianlong period, circa 1745 (2) image 2

A PAIR OF NODDING-HEAD LADIES AS CANDLEHOLDERS Qianlong period, circa 1745 (2) image 3

A PAIR OF NODDING-HEAD LADIES AS CANDLEHOLDERS Qianlong period, circa 1745 (2) image 4

A PAIR OF NODDING-HEAD LADIES AS CANDLEHOLDERS Qianlong period, circa 1745 (2) image 5

Lot 60

A PAIR OF NODDING-HEAD LADIES AS CANDLEHOLDERS
Qianlong period, circa 1745

24 January 2023, 10:00 EST

New York

Sold for US$15,300 inc. premium

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A PAIR OF NODDING-HEAD LADIES AS CANDLEHOLDERS

Qianlong period, circa 1745
Modeled in mirror image with each lady holding a large slender baluster vase to one side of her body, decorated with blue and white lappets at the foot and neck and a single band of unusual pale under-glaze copper-red between the lappets at the neck, and with the other arm outstretched across her body to support it, wearing coral-red robes with gilt black-ground stylized chilong roundels equally spaced around the figure and breaking waves and rockwork at the hem of the robe, a large, green-glazed kerchief tied at one edge of robe and strung with small cases at waist height, the heads are modeled separately and suspend weights which extend well inside the body to allow the figures to nod elegantly, both figures standing on a conjoined stepped and waisted rectangular stand with low relief floral decoration above a shaped apron.
12in (31cm) high (2).

Footnotes

乾隆時期約1745年粉彩描金點頭紅衫仕女燭臺一對

Published
Cohen & Cohen, A Game of Bowls, Gent, 2014, pp. 58-59, no. 46

出版：
倫敦Cohen & Cohen古董行，《A Game of Bowls》，根特，2014年，頁58-59，圖版編號46

Nodding-head porcelain ladies are relatively rarer than similar models with an unarticulated rigid head and must have been even more attractive to Western buyers who would have been amused by the heads moving, apparently untouched but in fact set in motion by any draught of air. The idea was also used at the Meissen factory in Germany, where a well-known model of a seated Chinese-style figure has the same amusing feature, a head that nods without any visible external pressure.

References: Howard, 1994, p. 258, no. 308, a similar pair with different enamel colors; Howard & Ayers 1978, p. 614, no. 643, another similar pair which are suggested to have derived from chinoiserie originals; Williamson 1970, pl. LIX, various figures; Sharpe 2002, p.209, a pair of ladies with lotus candleholders; and Cohen & Cohen 2003, no. 23, a similar pair.

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