Chinese Export Famille Rose Porcelain Bowl With Chinese "Antiques" & Scholar's Items on Furniture, Qianlong Period, Circa 1735-40

Details

Description

The Scholar's Interior: A Chinese Export Porcelain Famille Rose 'Antiques' Bowl

Object: Deep Punch/Serving Bowl
Origin: Jingdezhen, China (decorated for … Read more The Scholar's Interior: A Chinese Export Porcelain Famille Rose 'Antiques' Bowl

Object: Deep Punch/Serving Bowl
Origin: Jingdezhen, China (decorated for the European market)
Date: Circa 1735-1740 (Qianlong Period)
Medium: Hard-Paste Porcelain, Famille Rose and Famille Verte Overglaze Enamels, and Gilding

Dimensions: 9 inches in diameter x 4 inches high.

This extraordinary Chinese Export Porcelain Bowl is a masterful and early example of the Famille Rose palette, created during the early Qianlong period for the affluent European or American market. Its decoration is highly unusual, serving as a unique visual catalogue of Chinese domestic objects and scholarly culture.

The exterior features an expansive, continuous narrative composed of Chinese domestic furniture—notably a large sofa or canopied couch with precious objects (known as bǎigǔ, or "Hundred Antiques") resting on the seat, flanked by tables, a marble-topped urn, and a garden seat. The opposite side is dominated by a majestic bronze urn overflowing with cascading flowers. This arrangement of highly stylized furniture and objects, rather than human figures, gives the bowl a sophisticated, almost architectural quality.

The decoration continues inside, where the well is fully painted with further groupings of urns, blooming flowers, and another garden seat. The fine detail, especially the combination of the newly introduced opaque pinks of the Famille Rose palette with earlier Famille Verte greens, places this bowl firmly at the apex of $18^{th}$-century Chinese ceramic artistry.

Historical Context: The Taste for Chinese Interiors

Dating to the mid-$1730$s, this bowl was produced at a time when European interest in all aspects of Chinese culture, known as Chinoiserie, was peaking. While the West craved scenes of daily life, this specific style—focusing on objects of scholarship and domestic tranquility—reflects a highly discerning and elite buyer who understood the cultural significance of the pieces depicted. The furniture itself, often rendered in idealized forms, provides a fascinating, albeit stylized, record of the interior aesthetic that influenced Western design.

The rarity and quality of the execution, along with the distinct decorative subject matter, solidify the bowl's significance as an important artifact of early 18th-century global commerce.

References

Christie's Sale # 14481: "Collected in America: Chinese Ceramics from The Metropolitan Museum of Art", 13 - 22 September 2016, lot 1895 (for an identical bowl and plate from the same service which sold for $43,750.00.)

Howard, David S.: Chinese Armorial Porcelain (For general context on high-status 18th-century Chinese export commissions).

Jörg, Christian: Chinese Ceramics in the Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (For context on Qianlong Period export wares).

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