Qianlong porcelain bowl from Norton's Art

Hello guys, I know that I am mega lazy right now but since I receive some likes in my facebook, so I have decided to post some entries.  In this week, I have found an interesting piece that can showcase what we have learnt previously.

Preview Entry 9 - Norton's Art (Fine Chinese Ceramics, Painting, Works of Art) 7 July 2016

Chinese porcelain bowl, famille rose glazed, marked

Lot 8M

6 Characters (大清乾隆年製) base mark

Estimated: $100 - $200

Motifs

For this piece, apart from the shape, we must be aware for the motifs on this piece.  As we can see here, we can find the butterfly (蝶), which has the meaning of longevity, double happiness (雙囍), and floral design that resemble peony (牡丹), which has the meaning of wealth.  For double happiness and butterfly, these motifs are well used in late Qing pieces especially during Tongzhi reign (同治 1856-1875).

Palace Museum, China

Now we explain why it is problematic

Motifs again

As we mentioned before, double happiness and butterfly motifs are common used in Tongzhi reign, to be honest here I haven't seen a Qianlong piece with this motifs combination (I seen butterfly motifs on Qianlong fabric though).  Actually it is very weird to see Tongzhi motifs (1856-1875) on a Qianlong piece (1711-1799).  I know time travel is possible but I don't think it is possible 200 years ago.

Another thing is the poor drawing of motifs, for the butterfly I think it is quite nice, similar to the pieces from Tongzhi reign.  But for the double happiness and Peony, they look questionable, I guess they spent all the budget on the butterfly.  The double happiness are separated, the peony is too simple.  I cannot find a Qianlong piece with Peony motifs yet, but as you can see here, you can see the really big difference.

Palace Museum, Taiwan

Weird mark

For the base mark, It was inscribed as “大清乾隆年製”.  Actually, it is okay to me if it is a piece from Tongzhi or Daoguang reign, since the mark is usually not very good in a famille rose piece, the production quality is dropping due to budget limitation.  The size for the mark is okay to me, not over sized or under sized.  Just one thing look weird to me, which is the "大", the head for the 大 is missing, I don't know if it is poorly photographed or what.

Shape

Actually I was going to skip this part since it is just too easy to spot the problem, the bowl is warped due to bad firing.  And the most important part is, it is not even a bowl, it looks like a satellite dish to me. seriously?

Conclusion

I think it worth the price if it is sold in $20, good for holding your key chain or coins, but I highly doubt that it is an authentic Qianlong piece.

So this is the preview after the long long vacation, I received lots of PMs from facebook, the pms and likes are meant a lot to me so I really thanks for the supports from you guys!

Hello! Connoisseur bear here~ how’s your holiday?  I was having a good time, eat, sleep, eat, sleep, and eat some more…I am now so fat that I will have to get some new pants… oh no!

This week we are going to talk about a Qing famille rose yellow ground dish.  For this dish, our bears think it is interesting since it looked so good, but somehow there are still some small features that are problematic to us.  So, it is a good opportunity for us to discover and learn from this dish.

Preview Entry 8 - HGPY NY Auctions (Asian Fine art and Antiques) 16 January 2016

Qing Famille Rose Dayazhai Yellow Plate

Lot 63

4 Characters (永慶長春) base mark

Estimated: $5,000 - $10,000

For the background information, supposing if this is a genuine piece, this piece is made for Empress Dowager, Cixi (1835-1908).  This group of pieces bear her special ‘Da Ya Zhai’ 大雅齋 (Studio of Great Elegance) marks, and were designed and produced during late Tongzhi period (1862-1874) or the early Guangxu period (1874-1908) (ref 1).  This type of wares are usually grisaille-decorated墨彩, and decorated with floral and bird motifs.

Here are the reasons why we think it is a questionable piece:

Density of the black

As we can see in this section, the motifs are grisaille-decorated, however, they are in a high density of dark color, for example the pedals and the bird.  For the pieces from Palace museum in China, as we can see the motifs are not in that density, and if you put them together we can see the difference.  One interesting side note for the grisaille decoration is, the darker area usually is the shadowed part of the motifs, it is to convey a sense of three dimension.  Feature like this started after Yongzheng period (1678-1735), at that time there were Western missionaries serving in the Qing Court, and they brought the knowledge of Western painting and the idea of linear perspective to Court painters.

Lot 63, Qing Famille Rose Dayazhai Yellow Plate

Yellow Ground Porcelain 'Flower and Butterfly' Plate, Dayazhai Mark, Qing Dynasty Guangxu period.
黃地墨彩花蝶紋盤
Collection of Palace Museum, China.

Glossy Surface/ Perfect Rim

For the glossy surface, we must be careful when we see a piece with glass-like reflection, for older piece it should be in a less reflective/ dull surface.  But please be aware even if you see a dull one.  If you see many scratch marks on a porcelain, it means it is treated with sand paper, people use sand paper to make the piece less reflective and to make it looks older.  For famille rose pieces, the sand paper method cannot be used, since it will remove the glaze.

For the perfect rim, it is also related to the condition of this piece, it is just too perfect, it is covered with brownish glazed completely.  Usually the coating should be damaged a bit.  It means A, it is in a really condition.  B, restored.  C, Modern.  

For reference piece, please see below bowl from British Museum, as you can see the rim is scratched a bit.  Also, the yellow ground is less reflective, perfect than the one from HGPY NY.

Porcelain Bowl, Collection of British Museum 

A side note for the brownish rim is, it seems to be a common feature for late qing imperial pieces to have a brownish rim, unlike previous periods like Qianlong and Yongzheng.

Beautiful, yet weird mark

For the base mark, It was inscribed as “Yongqing changchun” (永慶長春) (eternal prosperity and enduring spring), I must say it is nicely written, much better handwriting than I do.  However~, it is not similar with other Dayazhai pieces.  Please compare the style from this piece and the piece of Palace Museum (sorry for the quality).  

As we can see from the piece of Palace Museum (left), the circled strokes of 慶,長,春 are longer.  For the piece from HGPY NY auctions (right), they seems ‘taller’ and ‘slimmer’.  I must say the mark is the red flag for me.

Reference:

1. Ronald W. Longsdorf. 1966. "The Tongzhi Imperial Wedding Porcelain." Pp. 69-78.  In Orientations. Hong Kong: Orientations Magazine Ltd..

2.   故宮博物院編，《官樣御瓷──故宮博物院藏清代制瓷官樣與御窯瓷器》，北京：紫禁城出版社（2007）。

3.   Bowl, British Museum,  (Ok I admit that lazy for this one)

So!  That’s the analysis for this week!  Time to eat some more~

Also!  Oh my god we got another Like for our Facebook page~~~~~~~~Thank you Chrissy Goh! You know every time when I see a like in our page, I dance in joy and jump around in my home.