Vase of bottle shape with "garlic" mouth

Object Details

• Description

  Vase of bottle shape with "onion" mouth. Polychrome - Guyuexuan type. With stand.

  Body: fine white porcelain.

  Glaze: transparent, glossy, extremely smooth and fine.

  Decoration: minutely painted in fine enamel colors; a woman and two boys in a landscape; poem of 10 characters; three simulated seals; four-character Qianlong mark in gray enamel on base.

• Marks

  Four-character Qianlong mark in gray enamel on base.

• Inscriptions

  Poem of 10 characters

• Label

  The painting on the vase is symbolic of the wish to bear high-ranking sons. Pomegranates in the dish beside the woman signify fertility, and the osmanthus branch held by one of her sons portends his future success. The Chinese word for osmanthus (gui) is a homophone for the word meaning noble. Also because osmanthus trees bloom during the season of the imperial examinations (the eighth lunar month), they symbolize literary success and official position. The poem on the vase is a conventional verse about the transience of nature - "when blossoms are at their fullest,then autumn naturally has come" (in Chinese tradition auturmn begins in the eighth lunar month); the poem serves as an opportunity to include calligraphy on the vase, so together we have the Three Perfections (painting, poetry and calligraphy) on this one porcelain vessel.

• Provenance

  1927

  Probably Sale, Yamanaka & Company, London [1]

  Mrs. Christian R. Holmes (1871-1941), New York and "The Chimneys," Sands Point, Port Washington, Long Island, reportedly purchased from Yamanaka & Company [2]

  1943

  Yamanaka & Company, New York [3]

  About 1949

  H. L. Hsieh, New York, from at least October 1949 [4]

  From 1949 to 1954

  C. T. Loo & Company, New York, purchased from H. L. Hsieh in October 1949 [5]

  From 1954

  Freer Gallery of Art, purchased from C. T. Loo & Company on December 8, 1954 [6]

  Notes:

  [1] According to Soame Jenyns, the vase belonged to Yamanaka & Company in 1927, see Soame Jenyns, Later Chinese Porcelain: The Ch'ing Dynasty, 1644-1912 (London: Faber and Faber, 1951), pl. 79, p. 93, note 23. In articles published in 1996 and 1998, Tomita Noboru identified a vase of this form and decoration, which he described as "a pair with the Freer piece", in a Yamanaka auction in London in February 1927, see Tomita Noboru, "Yamanaka Shokai tenkan mokuroku kenkyu--sekai hen (Research on Yamanaka Exhibition Catalogues - International Cases: Transfer of Cultural Artifacts in Modern China and Japan)," The Tohoku Gakuin University Review 115 (1996), pp. 180-184 and Tomita Noboru, "Yamanaka Shokai tenkan mokuroku kenkyu--Nihon hen; Chugoku kindai ni okeru bunbutsu ryushitsu to Nihon--shimo hen (zen) (Research on Yamanaka Exhibition Catalogues; Japanese Cases: Transfer of Cultural Artifacts in Modern China and Japan)" Tosetsu 542 (May 1998), p. 68 and fig. 7.

  [2] According to Collection of Chinese and Other Far Eastern Art Assembled by Yamanaka & Company, Inc. (New York, 1943), no. 1203 and Warren E. Cox, The Book of Potter and Porcelain vol. II (New York: Crown Publishers, 1944), pp. 600-601, pl. 170.

  [3] The vase was published in a brochure inventorying the selected objects from Yamanaka & Company's collection in 1943, see Collection of Chinese and Other Far Eastern Art Assembled by Yamanaka & Company, Inc. (New York, 1943), no. 1203 (ill. in color on the frontispiece). The objects in the brochure were offered for sale as a part of the process of the firm's liquidation by the office of Alien Property Custodian. Since the vase was not included in a series of public sales of the Yamanaka & Company's stock which took place in May and June 1944, it must have been sold between 1943 and 1944.

  [4] See C. T. Loo's stockcard no. LI-9/140: "Porcelain bottle vase, pear shape body on high foot ring, slim tall neck with bulbous top. Decorated in delicate famille rose enamels. Woman holding a fan and two children in a blooming garden with rockery, foliated bulbous top. Two lines poem with three red seals. Four character seal mark underfoot, in raised grey enamel. Imperial Ch'ien Lung. Finest quality of Ku Yueh Hsuan," C. T. Loo & Frank Caro Archive, Musée Guimet, Paris, copy in object file. According to the stockcard, Loo purchased the vase from Hsieh in October 1949. See also C. T. Loo's letter to Archibald G. Wenley, dated January 13, 1950, copy in object file, in which Loo mentions Mr. Hsieh as the previous owner of the vase.

  [5] See C. T. Loo's stockcard cited in note 4.

  According to information on an archival vault card, Registrar Office, Loo left the object for examination at the Freer Gallery on November 30, 1949. On October 9, 1950, the dealer took the vase back and brought it again to the Freer Gallery on May 8, 1952.

  [6] See C. T. Loo's invoice, dated December 8, 1954, copy in object file.

• Collection

  Freer Gallery of Art Collection

• Exhibition History

  Ruffled Feathers: Creating Whistler's Peacock Room (July 13, 2024 to January 21, 2027)

  Looking Out, Looking In: Art in Late Imperial China (October 14, 2017 - ongoing)

  Children at Play in Chinese Painting (November 14, 2009 to May 23, 2010)

  Beyond Paper: Chinese Calligraphy on Objects (August 18, 1994 to July 3, 1997)

  America Meets Asia at the Freer Gallery of Art (May 9, 1993 to August 8, 1994)

  Chinese Ceramics (March 15, 1982 to July 10, 1986)

  Chinese Art (March 9, 1981 to March 12, 1982)

  Chinese Ceramics (May 9, 1980 to March 6, 1981)

  Chinese Ceramics (April 11, 1978 to September 4, 1980)

  Bicentennial Exhibition: Chinese Art (December 5, 1975 to November 10, 1976)

  Chinese Art (January 1, 1963 to March 6, 1981)

  Untitled Exhibition, Chinese Ceramics (March 7, 1957 to January 1, 1963)

  Centennial Exhibition, Gallery 13 (November 10, 1955 to March 1, 1957)

• Previous custodian or owner

  Mrs. Christian R. Holmes (1871-1941)

  Yamanaka and Co. 山中商会 (1917-1965)

  Mr. H. L. Hsieh

  C.T. Loo & Company (1914-1948)

• Origin

  Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, China

• Credit Line

  Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment

• Type

  Vessel

• Restrictions and Rights

  Usage Conditions Apply

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Keep Exploring

• Related Resources

  collections.si.edu

• Date

  1930s, 1730s

• Name

  Holmes, Christian R., Hsieh, H. L., Yamanaka and Co., C.T. Loo & Company

• Place

  China, Jiangxi province, Jingdezhen

• Topic

  Art, Chinese Art, Ceramics, Falangcai, Landscapes, Porcelain, Ivory, Qing dynasty (1644 - 1911), Poetry, Jingdezhen ware, Woman, Qianlong reign (1736 - 1796), Pomegranate

• Culture

  Chinese

• Object Type

  Vessels (containers)