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Dear all

At a recent auction I also missed bidding on this bowl. It sold for a huge sum.

Now, can anyone let me know their opinions? It looks Imperial but maybe it is a copy? Don't hesitate to express an opinion.

Kind regards
JLim

This famille jaune "Flowerhead & Acanthus Scroll" motif was a standard pattern around the Qing palace from at least the Qianlong reign. The acanthus scroll came straight out of Italian 17th century design books, the earliest printed in the 1620's, and appeared in books used by other European craftsmen by the 1680's. This is according to Gunhild Avitabile, author of the 1987 Weishaupt Collection catalog, "From the Dragon's Treasure", which book shows a bowl like the one you picture here with similar Daoguang underglaze blue period mark. Avitabile summarizes the look of these porcelains as:

"On a uniform lemon-yellow ground ("muslin texture") in magnificent enamel colouring, stylized lotus flowers, peonies and day lilies (Hemerocallis, also called "forget-your-troubles" or "may-you-have-a-son"), with rich intertwining leaf scrolls. The bowl differs little from prototypes of the Qianlong era." If anything, I'd say that the bowl you show here lacks a degree of brightness compared to the pieces I've handled and seen in the catalogs.

I've uploaded some photos here of two Guangxu mark & period examples of the motif on an eight-inch bowl and 6.5-inch saucer. Both are very good renditions of the imperial pattern, and an identical saucer was published in the later Weishaupt catalog, entitled "The Great Fortune".

Best regards,

Bill H.

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