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Could someone tell me the title/history of the poem with the verse "花开富贵香，松间寒转直"?
Google translates it to "Blooming rich and fragrant, loose between the cold straight".

I found a listing online of a bowl that looks quite modern, but is claims the bowl to be Yongzheng, but the site is in Chinese, so perhaps my Google is not translating it correctly.

http://www.decangwang.com/bbs/Show.Asp?ID=4763

Is this poem specific to Yongzheng period porcelain bowls?

Thank you!

This is not Yongzheng.

Kind regards
JLim

I know this piece is not Yongzheng period.
My question is about the poem.
Thank you anyway.

Dear TimG

That is not what you said in your original message. You say this is not a Yongzheng bowl. Therefore how could this poem be specific to Yongzheng bowls? Endless mysteries to consider.

Kind regards
J.Lim

Dear Tim,
The translation without Google translator in
my interpretation,
花開富貴香　Flowers are fragrant when they are blooming
松間寒轉直　Pines　are growing straight when there is cold
Reading of markings,
Right,
佳明　　Jiaming
Left,
釽　Pi
旭映　Xuying, Pi Xuying, the name of painter

I think the above text is rather the starting part of a song, than being a citation from an unknown poem.

With regards,
I.Nagy

Thank you very much!

Your translation of the seals helped me to find this book...

https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%87%91%E6%88%90%E6%97%AD%E6%98%A0

I am relying on Google to translate...Can you please tell me if this book is in fact referencing the artist 'XuYing' as you translated?

Perhaps I need to buy this book for reference.

Thank you!

Dear Tim,
I can't get connected to the above mentioned https
protocol on my PC.
Could you just write down the title and author of
the book.

With rgards,
I.Nagy

I copied the info...I hope this is enough for you to know if the book would be a good reference source for this style of porcelain. Thanks again.
Tim

金成旭映 编辑
《金成旭映》，是国立故宫博物院出版的图书，作者是余佩瑾
作 者 余佩瑾　編 ISBN 9789575626716 页 数 359 定 价 NT$700 出版社 國立故宮博物院 出版时间 2013-2 装 帧 平装 副标题 清雍正琺瑯彩瓷

Put the ISBN (ISBN 9789575626716) in Google and you'll get places where you can buy the book (Porcelain with Painted Enamels of Qing Yongzheng Period (1723-1735)). Like here:

https://www.purpleculture.net/porcelain-with-painted-enamels-of-qing-yongzheng-period-17231735-p-24707/

Cheers,
Stan

Thanks, Stan!

Just ordered it!

A quick google search indicates that the couplet comes up only on this particular bowl (http://www.decangwang.com/bbs/Show.asp?ID=4763), not as a preexisting poem, though the words used do of course appear in various poems across time:

松间 (Among the pines) appears in a Jin dynasty (the earlier one) poem, 花开富贵 (the richness of blossoming flowers) appears in a Tang dynasty poem, etc. These two examples can be found in this list of poems about the "three friends of winter" (pine, bamboo, plum): https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/206537558.html

Thanks, Rat!

From my Google research, all of the Yongzheng falengcai bowls all bear a one or two verse poem on the back along with a few seals.

Do you know whether or not there is any source that has cataloged the verses used in these bowls?

From what I've been reading on the Sotheby's and Christie's lot essays, the poems on the genuine pieces are often fragments of famous early poems as you described.

I'm just trying to find out if there is an a documented genuine Yongzheng falengcai bowl that this bowl derived it's design and poem.

Thanks again!
Tim

I appreciate your approach, and my knowledge of porcelain is inadequate to answer your question about the text, but I'm convinced that your bowl is not a copy of an existing falangcai bowl because its decorative design, level of decorative detail, design quality, general "busyness", and color scheme bear no resemblance to any genuine examples I have seen. It is also the case that pre-existing texts are sometimes added to new works of art, often to give an imitation the pretense of authenticity, so even if the inscription on your bowl has an antecedent, there is no reason why the two objects on which the same text appears must be related.

Rat,

Your insight is really remarkable and for so many years you've been a great resource to me and others.

I do not own the bowl in the original post, and it is clearly a modern creation, not a Yongzheng piece as the website describes.

I am a far cry from a scholar, but perhaps by good fortune, I've acquired several fine pieces over the past 10 years or so - some I've kept and other's I've sold.

Since you and so many have been so generous to share your knowledge, I will share a bit more, too.

The circumstances that motivated me to post my question regarding the poem was that I do own what I believe is a genuine Yongzheng Gu Yue bowl that bears the same two verses as the modern piece, but in reverse order.

Regarding my bowl, the provenance I was given is incomplete and dates back to only 1970. With no written documentation to support prior sales/ownership, my hope was to better understand the source of the verse, and perhaps located any additional information that might turn up a record or photo that would support previous ownership / provenance.

I think you and others can understand my hesitance to show photos as it can be detrimental to future sales.

However, since everyone has been so generous with their knowledge, I will post this one photo of a front view, with and without flash.

While I lack the credentials to guarantee authenticity, I think you can see from the photo that the quality and brilliance of the enamel work that it is deserving of further research. The design portrays all the simplicity of late Kangxi/early Yongzheng, while displaying all of the complexities of glazes during the transition into the Qianlong (spotted robin's egg blue of the bird feathers, purple/blue ground, lustrous rock work).

Whether or not I can uncover evidence of the bowl's provenance remains to be seen, and I suspect will require some time to gather.

Naturally, if you have any suggestions on where to look, I'm all ears.

Enjoy and thanks!

It's a lovely bowl, and I find the way the rocks have been rendered particularly interesting. I'm afraid I just don't know enough about ceramics to suggest a source better than the NPM book already mentioned. The Gotheborg discussion forum includes some experienced collectors and dealers, if you want to post photos there for comment.

I've ordered the book, so I'm just waiting for it to arrive.

I think there is provenance to be discovered.

Think about it this way...

For two bowls to exist, there must be some source of reference for the bowls to have such similar bird and rock designs and identical calligraphic versus.

Whether or not my bowl is genuine or not is no longer relevant as it has been in collection for the past 50 years...the modern bowl originally listed must have been designed based upon either an existing museum specimen or a book reference. There's no chance that it matches my bowl by simple coincidence.

Thanks for all of your help.

I hear you, and you are likely correct that they share a common origin at some level but think that is not necessarily a Yongzheng falangcai model. Hopefully something specific turns up

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