19th Century Chinese Blue and White 'Bogu' and 'Plum-Blossom' Vase

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Up for sale is a large antique Chinese blue and white porcelain Guanyin vase (观音瓶) finely decorated with scholarly 'Bogu' … Read more Up for sale is a large antique Chinese blue and white porcelain Guanyin vase (观音瓶) finely decorated with scholarly 'Bogu' (博古)* patterns within two large flower-shaped frames among plum-blossom motifs, Daoguang period, 1820-1850, Qing Dynasty, in overall good condition with aged imperfections including two glaze flakes on the rim, and a few chips and glaze flaking to the foot rim, see photos for more details
Private New York City collection
15 3/4 in. high

*Originally ‘bogu’ meant an inventory of antiquities. In the Song Dynasty (960–1279AD), the wealthy created real shelves to display their curiosities and antiquities and called them ‘bogujia’, or ‘bogu’ shelves. This led to artists using the motif in carvings, paintings, and in this case ceramic decorations. Think of them as representations of cabinets of curiosities as we say in English. That’s why a bogu always has a frame around it: it’s meant to symbolize a cabinet. How this works is ingenuous. Each object has a name, of course. And each name is a homonym for something else. For example a vase in Chinese is called ‘ping’, which sounds like ‘ping’ (different character but the same sound) meaning ‘peace’. Hence a vase is a symbol of peace. See less