A large yellow ground underglaze blue peach dish, Qing dynasty, Qianlong six character mark (1736-1795).
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Finely painted in early Ming style with a central medallion of nine peaches suspended from gnarled leafy branches within a border of double-circles, repeated below the mouth rim, the exterior with a dense interwoven convovulous scroll between double lines, all on a bright lemon-yellow ground. Diameter 27 cm.
Restored chip.
Provenance
The Collection of Erik Nordström (1884-1971)
Erik Nordström was commissioned after a recommendation by Swedish minister Gustav Oscar Wallenberg, the Envoyé of Japan and China, as Post General in Shanghai at the Royal Chinese General Post Office in 1910. The aim was to help facilitate its work throughout China. He was positioned in several of the Chinese provinces (he often chose the northern provinces due to their resemblance to the northern Sweden where he stems from) over his 35 years in the postal service.
Gustav Oscar Wallenberg who became a close and dear friend of Erik Nordström, was a keen collector of Chinese ceramics and introduced him to the art of collecting by defining age, quality and heritage as they visited the antique shops of Beijing. The vast collection of Eric Nordström contains a variety of objects of which many were acquired for the purpose of everyday use, hence the wear to many of the objects.
During his time in China he encountered and befriended many of the Swedish society who both worked and lived as well as passed through China at the time, i.e. Johan Gunnar Andersson and wife, Sven Hedin, Carl Bonde, Sten Thiel in the company of Nils von Dardel and his then fiancé Nita Wallenberg, to name only a few.
Erik Nordström was a keen sportsman and always liked a challenge whether it be hunting, shooting or tennis. He retired in China in 1945 and spent his last years in Qingdao before his return to Sweden in 1948.
By the time he left China in 1948 he and his family had experienced the Chinese revolution, World War I and the Japanese invasion and World War II.
Exhibitions
Compare similar sold at Christies; LOT3921,
SALE 2862
Compare similar sold at Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art Hong Kong, HKCEC Grand Hall|1 June 2011
Also one The Raufast Collection, France.
Sotheby's London, 7 November 2007, lot 404.
Also; SALE 17646. Christies. Chinese Art from The Art Institute of Chicago. New York|12 September 2019. Lot 756.
More information
The emperors admiration for the celebrated wares of the early Ming dynasty is evident in this dish, from which it has been inspired. The motif of fruiting peaches was first devised during the Yongle period and became a favourite motif of the Qing emperors because of its association with longevity. Although the decoration on this dish is a Qianlong reinterpretation of the Yongle motif, it is intentionally painted in the Ming style with the characteristic ‘heaping and piling’ effect, in order to evoke the glorious past. Similarly, the attractive contrasting palette of underglaze blue and yellow first appeared on porcelain during the Xuande reign, but continued to be produced throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Dishes of this type are held in important private and museum collections worldwide; one in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is illustrated in Blue and White Ware of the Ch’ing Dynasty, vol. 2, Hong Kong, 1968, pl. 29; another in the Nanjing Museum, Nanjing, is published in The Official Kiln Porcelain of the Chinese Qing Dynasty, Shanghai, 2003, pl. 221; and a third from the Yokogawa collection, is published in the Illustrated Catalogues of the Tokyo National Museum. Chinese Ceramics II, Tokyo, 1965, pl. 625. See also a pair of yellow-ground dishes painted with this design, from the T.Y. Chao collection, included in the exhibition Ch’ing Porcelain from the Wah Kwong Collection, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1974, cat. no. 45, and sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 19th May 1987, lot 316.
For examples of Xuande prototypes, see four broken dishes decorated with various fruit and flower motifs, excavated from the imperial kiln site at Jingdezhen, included in the exhibition Jingdezhen chutu Ming Xuande guanyao ciqi/Xuande Imperial Porcelain Excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1998, cat. nos. 78-2, 82-2, 85-3 and 88.