White Elephant
Jingdezhen, 1820-1880
Height: 7.22 cm
Mouth/lip: .1.08/2.15 cm
Stopper: coral; gilt-bronze collar
Provenance:
John Sinclair Collection
Clare Chu, October 2010
Hugh Moss (HK) Ltd.
Famille rose enamels on colourless glaze on cobalt pigment on white porcelain (of the variety known as wucai); with a flat lip, recessed flat foot, and protruding, flattened foot rim; painted on each of the main sides with panel, one side with a sage holding a walking staff and prayer beads with what may be intended as a lamp (a dish set on a tripod stand in another dish) on a table behind him, two geese, and two deer all beside a blossoming tree and a rocky outcrop, the other with a monkey on a white elephant, with a rabbit on the branch of a similar tree and a bird above, also with a rocky outcrop, the narrow-side panels with floral designs, all the panels surrounded by continuous wan-symbol patterns with shuangxi (‘double happiness’) characters at the four corners in iron-red, the outer foot rim with a leiwen (‘thunder-pattern’) design, repeated around the lip above a band of formalized lingzhi-heads, the shoulders with a tortoise-carapace diaper, the foot with a formalized floral scroll resembling a chi dragon, the lip gilt, the interior glazed.
