Large porcelain bowl with ‘falangcai’ famille rose decoration

Large porcelain bowl with ‘falangcai’ famille rose decoration, the walls of great finesse and slightly domed profile ending in a flared neck. The exterior is painted in ‘falangcai’ enamels with a delicate motif of two crossed branches of a plum tree in bloom: one with a trunk of brown bark and pale pink flowers; the second branch, probably of a slightly different species, has a trunk of blackish bark from which buds and white flowers emerge. Each trunk features a type of lichen in the form of light black dots surrounded by green on the surface, while the flowers, both pink and white, have stamens highlighted in yellow and painted in light relief. This winter ‘bouquet’ is accentuated by a bamboo branch with striking green leaves in the background. The reverse of the bowl features a poem and three seals in puce pink enamel.
The interior of the bowl is devoid of decoration. Under the base, a four-character kaishu mark: ‘Yongzheng Nian Zhi’ is presented in a double square in blue enamel over glaze.

This bowl belongs to the extremely restricted circle of so-called ‘falangcai’ porcelains with famille rose decoration. Production began in an imperial workshop in the Peking Palace called falang Zuo (珐琅作), hence the name of the group produced. This workshop, initially specialized in the production of cloisonné enamels and enamels on copper (known as Peking enamels), made its first attempts at porcelain decoration under the reign of the Kangxi emperor and continued under the rule of the Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors.
The porcelains produced in this workshop did not feature blue underglaze markings, but rather overglaze enamels, applied by the craftsmen decorators in Beijing just like the rest of the decoration.

The quality of the glazes from this select group is unrivalled, and these porcelains are reputed to be the finest in all Chinese production, with production control often carried out by the Yongzheng emperor himself during his reign.

It should be noted that this exceptional production was in no way intended for use, but rather for the appreciation of technical prowess, hence the fact that these pieces generally show no signs of wear or use.

Height: 7.6 cm
Diameter: 16.2 cm

Provenance:
-South of France military family, brought back from China in the 1910s/1920s.
-French private collection, acquired from the family of the previous owners in the early 1990s.
-Nagel Auction, Fine Asian Art, sale 12/11/2004, lot 1612

Comparative collections:
Three other bowls of absolutely identical model and quality are known:
-one in the collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City (USA)
-the second in a private collection in Hong Kong
-the third illustrated in this catalog as a comparative and considerably smaller (14.6 cm in diameter) is in the Wang Xing Lou collection
Ref: Imperial Perfection, The Palace Porcelain of Three Chinese Emperors, a selection from the WANG XING LOU collection, published in 2004 by Sing’s Antique Gallery. see P. 132, N° 47.

Comparative auction:
For a matching porcelain dish with comparable decoration, identical enameled chip seals but different poem, see Christie’s Hong Kong, Important Chinese Ceramic and Works of Art, October 28, 2002, lot 611.