A COPPER RED 'THREE FISH' BOWL

Yongzheng six-character mark and of the period

Footnotes

Please note this Lot is to be sold at No Reserve. 本拍品不設底價

清雍正 釉裡紅三魚紋碗
青花「大清雍正年製」楷書款

Provenance: Christie's London, 11 July 2006, lot 138
An important European private collection

來源:倫敦佳士得，2006年7月11日，拍品編號138
歐洲重要私人收藏

Finely potted and boldly decorated with three large fish in bright red tones, the present bowl is based on fifteenth century prototypes produced during the reign of the Xuande Emperor, when similar designs were created.

The silhouette technique consisted in sandwiching copper-red glazes between layers of clear glaze, which resulted in intense red designs. The use of copper red was a challenge for the potter to master with any degree of consistency as the mineral could easily float within the thick and transparent glaze. It appears to have been successfully fired to a particularly even and bright red tone on the present vessel.

See, for example, a small rounded bowl decorated with red fish, Xuande mark and period, illustrated in Exhibition of Imperial Porcelain of the Yongle and Xuande Periods Excavated from the Site of the Ming Imperial Factory at Jingdezhen, Hong Kong, 1989, no. 75.

Yongzheng bowls of this type appear to vary considerably in size. A slightly larger Yongzheng bowl (22.3 cm. diam.) of this design is illustrated in Sekai Toji Zenshu, Tokyo, 1983, vol. 15, pl. 39. A bowl of identical size to the present example from the Nanjing Museum, is illustrated in, Qing Imperial Porcelain of the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong Reigns, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1995, no. 49.

Compare with a very similar bowl illustrated by R. Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol.IV (II), London, 1994, no.1718. See a similar copper-red 'three fish' bowl, Yongzheng mark and period, which was sold at Sotheby's New York, 15 March 2017, lot 517.