Glazed porcelain bowl with deep curved sides and flaring rim, supported on a high foot-ring. The sides are incised with eight boys in a terraced garden, some playing musical instruments including clappers, cymbals, drums and gongs, while others dance, against a backdrop of rocks and pine trees, all between a stylized border with florettes and stiff leaves at the rim and a lappet band below. The design is glazed in leaf-green and reserved against a yellow ground that extends into the interior of the bowl. The base is painted in underglaze blue with the six-character reign mark of Yongzheng, within a double circle.
Diameter: 14.9cm
Provenance:
Goldschmidt collection, New York.
Shimentang collection.
Published:
Sotheby’s, Hong Kong, The Goldschmidt Collection of Qing Imperial Porcelain, 13 November 1990, number 50.
Similar examples:
John Ayers et al, Chinese Porcelain: The S. C. Ko Tianminlou Collection, volumes I and II, Hong Kong, 1987, number 103.
John Ayers, The Baur Collection, Geneva: Chinese Ceramics, volume 4, Geneva, 1974, A540 and 541 for a pair of bowls.
The motif of children at play was a popular design on both Ming and Qing ceramics, representing the wish for numerous offspring.