Collection online

bottle

• Object type

  • bottle

• Museum number

  PDF.868

• Description

  Porcelain bottle with a pear-shaped body and slender neck swelling into a six lobed bulb below the lip. The bottle has a fine white body. There are rocks, rose peonies, birds and bamboo in 'Gu Yue' style mixed enamel on the body, and a poetical inscription on the neck. Pair with PDF 867.

• Culture/period

  • Qing dynasty
  • Qianlong

• Date

  • 1736-1795 (?)

• Production place

  • Made in: Jingdezhen
  • (Asia,China,Jiangxi (province),Jingdezhen)

• Materials

  • porcelain

• Technique

  • painted
  • glazed

• Dimensions

  • Height: 94 millimetres

• Inscriptions

  • • Inscription Type

      mark

    • Inscription Position

      On neck

    • Inscription Language

      Chinese

    • Inscription Content

      佳麗 長春'

    • Inscription Transliteration

      Beautiful; prolonged spring

    • Inscription Comment

      Four-character Qianlong mark in blue enamel on the base. Seals read jiali (beautiful) and changchun (prolonged spring).

• Curator's comments

  Published PDF date : Qing Qianlong 1736-95Room 95 label text:

  PDF 868

  Bottle with a poem

  
  This miniature bottle has a four-character Qianlong mark in blue enamel on the base. Seals read 佳麗 jiali (beautiful) and長春changchun (prolonged spring). Potters at the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen made the porcelain but painters decorated them in the Imperial Palace, Beijing, and fired them for a second time at a lower temperature. Formerly scholars called this type of top quality porcelains painted in the palace古月軒器 (Guyuexuan qi ‘Pavilion of the Ancient Moon wares’). Although the guyue seal appears on many pieces, these are now known as琺瑯彩(falangcai ‘foreign colours’) wares as the colours are believed to have been introduced to China through foreign Jesuits some of whom worked in the Forbidden City.

  
  Porcelain with falangcai-type enamels
  Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province 江西省, 景德鎮
  Qing dynasty, Qianlong blue enamel mark and period, AD 1736–1795

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• Bibliography

  • Medley 1975 Monochrome pl. 270
  • Hobson 1934 p. 174, pl. CLXXIII(c)
  • Lady David 1973 p.23, no.868
  • Scott 1991 p.39, no.868, illus p. 18
  • Pierson & Barnes 2002 p.87, no.74 (pair with 867)

• Location

  G95/dc33/sh7

• Acquisition name

  • On loan from: Sir Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art

• Acquisition notes

  R. L. Hobson 1934 records: From the Reginald Cory Collection. PDF card: Reginald Cory Collection.

• Department

  Asia

• Registration number

  PDF.868