Chinese Export Porcelain Imari & Rouge De Fer Large Punch Bowl

Details

Description

CChinese Export Porcelain Imari Rouge de Fer Large Punch Bowl, Edwards Collection
Circa 1735–1750

A big, warm, richly patterned Chinese … Read more CChinese Export Porcelain Imari Rouge de Fer Large Punch Bowl, Edwards Collection
Circa 1735–1750

A big, warm, richly patterned Chinese Export punch bowl of the 1730s and 1740s, painted in the Imari palette with the iron-red so generously laid on that the trade calls the type rouge de fer. Every inch of the exterior is worked: a fine iron-red diaper ground carries large roundels of underglaze blue peonies traced in gold within borders of scrolling clouds, alternating with branches of iron-red and gilt peonies with cobalt leaves, beneath a broad fret border reserved with blue-edged panels of scrolling foliage. A chain of iron-red loops rings the foot and the rim is gilt.

Inside, a matching trellis border strewn with gilt flowerheads frames a well painted with a butterfly hovering over peony branches rising from a mound, enclosed by a fine blue line. The bowl comes from the celebrated collection of Benjamin F. Edwards III of St. Louis, one of the most prolific American collectors of Chinese export porcelain, and still carries his numbered collection label.

At nearly fourteen inches across this is a bowl to build a room around. It reads as coral and gold from a distance, so it warms a blue-and-white or neutral scheme immediately, and it is as happy on a dining table filled with fruit, on a console under a mirror, or on a library table as it once was full of punch.

Dimensions
Diameter: 13 3/4 inches (34.9 cm)
Height: 5 1/2 inches (14 cm)

Provenance
The Benjamin F. Edwards III Collection, St. Louis (paper collection label numbered 2920)
Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge See less