A doucai 'floral' bowl, Qing dynasty, Yongzheng mark and of the period (1723-35).
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The finely potted bowl is delicately enameled on the exterior of the widely flared sides in soft pastel tones of pink, aubergine, yellow, red and green outlined in underglaze-blue with four floral roundels depicting the flowers of the four seasons, prunus, peony, lotus and chrysanthemum, separated by formalized lotus spandrels, and in the the center of the interior with a medallion containing two butterflies in flight above a flower sprig within a blue double-line border. The base with a six character Yongzheng mark within a double circle. Diameter 22.2 cm.
One damage bowl accompanies the piece (the pair).
Kintsugi restored.
Provenance
Gustaf Oscar Wallenberg (1865-1937), Stockholm, and thence by descent
Gustaf O. Wallenberg was a Swedish businessman, diplomat and active politician. He was the son of André Oscar Wallenberg, founder of Stockholm Enskilda Bank (today's Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken, known as SEB). After a career in the Swedish Navy he turned to the business world and was active in improving the transoceanic shipping industry.
Wallenberg was Sweden's Envoy to Tokyo between 1907-1918. In April 1907 he travelled to Beijing to amend the Treaty of Canton (1847) between Sweden-Norway and China and to establish diplomatic relations between Sweden and the Qing Court. As the Swedish Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Peking, he successfully negotiated and signed with Lien Fang, the Guangxu Emperor's High Commissioner Plenipotentiary and Senior Vice-President of the Wai Wu Pu, the Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation, between Sweden and China, which was signed in Beijing on 2 July 1908, with an additional article signed on 24 May 1909.
Exhibitions
Compare a pair at The Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 58951. Listed as possibly acquired by Queen Mary.
Other examples, sold at auction, include one sold at
Christies, 22–23 Mar 2018, Live auction 15449. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, lot 757.
Christie's Hong Kong, 29 May 2013, lot 2113; one sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 1 June 2011, lot 4008; and the example previously in the Paul and Helen Bernat Collection, sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 29 April 2001, lot 552.
Literature
A number of similarly decorated doucai conical bowls of identical size and dated to the Yongzheng period, are in the collection of important museums and private collections. One example is illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum - 38 - Porcelain in Polychrome and Contrasting Colors, Hong Kong, 1999, p. 250, no. 229. Another example from the Chang Foundation is included in Selected Chinese Ceramics from Han to Qing Dynasties, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1990, p. 320, no. 141. A further example in the Gulbenkian Museum of Oriental Art and Archaeology, University of Durham, is illustrated by I. L. Legeza in A Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Malcolm MacDonald Collection of Chinese Ceramics, London, 1972, pl. CXXXIX, no. 378. Another example was included in the exhibition Chinese porcelain from the 15th to the 18th century, Eskenazi Ltd., London, 2006, no.12.
More information
Some of the Walleberg pieces are repaired in Japan in a technique called Kintsugi (translates to ‘golden joinery’), also known as kintsukuroi ‘golden repair’. It is a Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver or platinum, and it treats breakage and repair as a part of the history of an object rather than something to disguise.
One can clearly see in the academic collection of Gustaf Wallenberg, that he appreciated the items for their quality and the rareness of the pieces, and that he very confident and appreciated this way of taking care of the magnificent cultural heritage of China.