D: 43cms
?PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN ?
A Finely Painted ‘Rose Verte' Large Dish,
Yongzheng
decorated in bright enamels heightened with gilding, with a crowded scene of palace ladies out boating by moonlight to collect lotus flowers, the everted rim with figure vignettes against a seeded ground with flowering trees. ??A 'famille rose' basin with the same subject in the Roy Davids Collection was sold at Bonhams Bond St., lot 91,6th November 2014.
A beautiful Yongzheng dish on the same theme is illustrated in Williamson, 'The Book of Famille Rose', Tokyo 1927,pl.XLIV.
The beautifully portrayed scene of beautiful women cutting lotus embodies historic warnings about Court hedonism familiar to an educated Qing audience.
It recalls the story of King Fuchai of Wu(reigned 495 to 473 BC), who was infatuated with the beautiful femme fatale Xishi, who he saw picking lotus on a lake. Such was his fatal passion that he neglected state affairs, leading to the fall of his kingdom.
The doomed romance of the Tang Emperor Ming Huang and his Imperial Consort Yang Guifei, which led to rebellion and the fall of the dynasty, is also referred to in this design.
Ming Huang had made the claim that his beloved was more beautiful than a lotus flower.
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