A rare blue and white palace ‘musk mallow’ bowl, Qing dynasty, Kangxi period, Chenghua mark | 清康熙　青花仿成化纏枝秋葵紋宮盌　《大明成化年製 》仿款

Collection of Professor Jan Hellner (1917-2002), Stockholm, Sweden.

John Sparks Ltd, London.

Collection of Lenora and Walter F. Brown, San Antonio, Texas, acquired prior to 1992.

Christie’s New York, 25th September 2020, lot 1574.

Be it in the form, the motif, or the style, this bowl adheres closely to its Chenghua (r. 1465–1487) prototype renowned as ‘palace bowl’, a term that designates the most distinctive Chenghua imperial blue and white porcelains. Chenghua palace bowls were made for less than a decade around the 1480s, and the present imitation was produced during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1661–1722), a tribute to the finest originals of the previous dynasty. Compare a palace bowl of Chenghua mark and period, painted with an undulating meander of four musk mallow blooms interspersed with five-pointed serrated leaves, illustrated in Jessica Harrison-Hall, Catalogue of Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, vol. 1, p. 205, no. 6-4; the present Kangxi version follows the pattern strictly to capture the essence of the Chenghua classic.

The emulation of Chenghua designs during the Kangxi period served both aesthetic and political purposes. The start of the Qing dynasty saw a turbulent shift from the Han-dominated society to the Manchurian empire. To ease the fraught transition, early Qing emperors used many methods to legitimise their regime, one of which was to pay homage to the preceding rulers by referencing their accomplishments through the arts. Beyond imitating the forms, glazes, and designs, the Qing imperial potters also inscribed apocryphal marks on the contemporary replicas. Kangxi was the first Qing emperor to resume the use of apocryphal marks. Among the marks of different Ming emperors appearing on Kangxi porcelains, the mark of Chenghua is the most typical. According to Geng Baochang’s studies, Chenghua-marked blue and white porcelains of Kangxi emerged in the mid-to-late period of his reign, see Ming Qing ciqi jianding, Hong Kong, 1993, p. 359. Chenghua imperial porcelains were admired for their unmatched quality and enjoyed a reputation that endured the change of dynasties; therefore, the recognition of Chenghua porcelains embodied not only the Kangxi Emperor’s connoisseurship but also his Sinicisation as statecraft.

The Kangxi artisans used clay of high density and purity for a solid off-white body, then painted it with rich cobalt to achieve a vibrant tone of blue; the apocryphal marks usually appear to be written with strokes more structured and angular than in the original font; see ibid., pp. 224-225, 359.

Despite the fashion for Kangxi imperial porcelains to bear a Chenghua mark, very few imitations were crafted as palace bowls, and even fewer were decorated with musk mallow scrolls. Probably only one closely related example appears to exist, sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 8th October 1990, lot 571, and again in our New York rooms, 15th - 16th September 2015, lot 294. The same design, however, can be found on two other Chenghua originals besides the aforementioned bowl in the British Museum: the Cunliffe bowl, sold in these rooms, 8th October 2013, lot 1, and another recorded in Li Zhengzhong and Zhu Yuping, Taoci yanjiu jiansheng congshu, vol. 3: Zhongguo qinghua ci, Taipei, 1993, fig. 101, sold most recently in these rooms, 8th October 2014, lot 3698.

來源

Jan Hellner（1917-2002年）教授收藏，斯德哥爾摩，瑞典

John Sparks Ltd，倫敦

Lenora and Walter F. Brown 伉儷收藏，聖安東尼奧，德克薩斯州，得於1992年之前

紐約佳士得2020年9月25日，編號1574

不論形、紋、風格，此盌皆仿成化宮盌。成化一朝（1465-1487年），青花御瓷屬宮盌最為稀貴，僅於1480年前後十載內產燒。此件乃康熙帝（1661-1722年在位）致敬前朝經典所仿。成化本朝宮盌可見一例，繪四朵秋葵纏枝起伏，葉開五瓣，邊緣帶齒，錄霍吉淑，《大英博物館藏中國明代陶瓷》，倫敦，2001年，卷1，頁205，編號6-4；此康熙宮盌仿效嚴謹，成化精髓盡收一器。

清開朝之初，漢人社會轉由滿人統治，民心動蕩。維穩之際，清初帝王廣施文治以證正統，其中之一便是禮敬前朝君主，借鑑前朝文藝。除仿效前朝器形、釉色、紋飾外，清代御瓷亦落仿款。仿款首現於康熙瓷器，而諸仿款中，成化款尤為典型。據耿寶昌研究，成化仿款青花瓷集中見於康熙朝中晚期，《明清瓷器鑒定》，香港，1993年，頁359。成化御瓷冠絕古今，縱王朝興替，仍歷久不衰，康熙帝仿成化瓷，既存尚美好古之心，又是滿漢同治之舉。

康熙瓷用料上乘，胎土細潤，白如糯米，鈷料翠藍，發色恬淡；較之成化本朝寫款，康熙仿款字體方正，筆觸纖弱，見前述出處，頁224-225及359。

康熙御瓷落成化仿款者雖多，宮盌例卻極少，作秋葵紋者尤罕。市場僅見一例近似，先後售於香港佳士得1990年10月8日，編號571，及紐約蘇富比2015年9月15至16日，編號294。成化本朝例中，除前述大英博物館所藏，仍有二例：其一，Cunliffe勛爵雅蓄，售於香港蘇富比2013年10月8日，編號1，其二，錄李正中、朱裕平，《陶瓷研究鑑賞叢書》，卷3：中國青花瓷，台北，1993年，圖101，曾數度易手，最終售於香港蘇富比2014年10月8日，編號3698。