A FAMILLE VERTE ‘RICE PRODUCTION’ DISH  KANGXI PERIOD (1662-...

Hammer

£30,000

A FAMILLE VERTE ‘RICE PRODUCTION’ DISH 
KANGXI PERIOD (1662-1722)
康熙五彩耕織圖紋盤
with rounded and flared sides this “Rice Production Dish” is decorated with a scene of men within a courtyard carrying and sifting rice, all within a vista of rice paddies and set against a mountainous landscape. A broad band with cartouches containing stylised dragons and reserved against an alternating floral and honeycomb ground encircles this central design. The channel-foot base is glazed and has an under glaze blue lingzhi mark within a double circle.

In the left hand corner of the dish is a poem written in the classical five word and eight-stanza format and incorporating two seals – the circular one representing cultivation and the other weaving.

The poem reads:
“Workers push and pull, rubbing shoulders,
The millstone turns its teeth;
The sieve emits the sound of thunder,
Grains resembling weiqi pieces fall in a whirlwind;
Forming a landscape with mountains and rivers,
Small earthen hills confront each other;
What was previously a huge amount of pearl-like grains,
Suddenly become the spectacle in front of my eyes.”
34cm diam.

NOTE: Independent images of the daily tasks associated with tilling and weaving have a long history in China. However, the creation of a fully developed pictorial cycle only came into existence in the mid-12th century, during the latter part of the Southern Song dynasty, in the form of “Illustrations of Tilling and Weaving” – Genzhi tu. This pictorial theme eventually initiated numerous variations and gradually became increasingly popular as the subject matter on diverse material forms.

The Gengzhi tu representations reached a high level of development during the reign of the emperor Kangxi who expressed great interest in the agricultural activities of his empire with the establishment in 1681 of experimental rice fields on the periphery of Fengze yuan - "Garden of Abundant Marshes".

During his southern inspection tour of 1689, the Kangxi emperor was presented with a version of the pictorial cycle. Duly impressed, he decided on his return to Beijing to commission an updated set, to which he would contribute a preface and poems to accompany each picture. The artist selected for the task was Jiao Bingzhen, who had acquired techniques of perspective painting and “chiaschuro” from Jesuit missionaries whilst serving in the Directorate of Astronomy. Taking as his model the Genzhi tu version, made available to him by the emperor, Jiao made certain adjustments that resulted in forty-six pictures, equally divided between two sections. 

The initial printing of the revised Gengzhi tu did not take place until 1696 and thereafter several other printings were made. The preface by the Kangxi emperor was written in 41 columns of running script and subsequently engraved. The preface is then followed by twenty-three illustrations of rice-planting activities, from the soaking of seeds and ploughing to harvest-relating activities such as husking and milling. These are followed by twenty-three pictures of sericulture and weaving activities, starting with the bathing of silkworm eggs through to the weaving, dying and tailoring of silk fabrics. The five character regulated verses originally composed by Lou Shu are all placed in blank areas within the woodblock frame illustration, whilst the seven character quatrains composed by the emperor Kangxi are superimposed on the wide upper registers.

PROVENANCE: Acquired from Christie’s South Kensington, London, September 2007, Lot 1528. 

RELATED EXAMPLE: For an example of a dish with a similar scene see Christie’s New York, “ Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art”, 15 September 2017, Lot 1194.

The image is detailed in a book of forty-six wood block prints in the British Museum – Ref: 1949, 0709,0.1 - attributed to Zhu Gui and dated 1696. The inscription on the wood block print is the same as that on the above dish.

More Information

Several broken and restored sections -associated chips and some overpainting and some minor surface wear.