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Lot 102. A peachbloom-glazed seal paste box and cover Kangxi mark and period (1662-1722); Diameter 2⅞ in., 7.2 cm. Estimate: 80,000 - 120,000 USD. (C) 2020 Sotheby's
of compressed globular form, the domed cover glazed in variegated tones of copper-red ranging from pale pink to mushroom, transmuting to an 'unripe peach' green at one side, mottled with patches of strawberry-red including an area encircling the rim, the box with a similar pinkish glaze and strawberry-red encircling the foot, the interior and recessed base glazed white, the latter with a six-character mark in underglaze blue in three columns, wood stand (3).
Provenance: Collection of Edward T. Chow (1910–1980).
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 25th November 1980, lot 69.
Literature: Cécile and Michel Beurdeley, La Céramique Chinoise, Fribourg, 1974, pl. 98.
Exhibited: Exhibition of Ancient Chinese Ceramics from the Collection of the Kau Chi Society of Chinese Art, Art Gallery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1981, cat. no. 129.
Note: This exquisite box, with its thinly potted body and brilliant peachbloom glaze suffused with watery-green, is testament to the aesthetic refinement of the early Qing court. Small boxes for storing seal paste were often made in the preceding Ming dynasty from organic materials; standing as symbols of simplicity and a life lived in tune with nature, concepts at the center of Daoist and Neo-Confucian philosophy. The peachbloom glaze, especially cherished because of its deceptive simplicity and unpredictability, provided scholar-officials with an attractive porcelain alternative.
Similar peachbloom-glazed boxes can be found in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong. Qing Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1989, p. 141, pl. 124; in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included in the Special Exhibition of K’ang-hsi, Yung-cheng and Ch’ien-lung Porcelain Ware from the Ch’ing Dynasty, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1986, cat. no. 11; and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illustrated in Suzanne Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1989, p. 141. See also eight boxes from the collection of Peter A.B. Widener, in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., published in Virginia Bower et al., The Collections of the National Gallery of Art. Systematic Catalogue: Decorative Arts, Part I, Washington, 1998, pp 58-60.
The inclusion of a similar box on the famous handscroll Guwantu (‘Pictures of Antiques’) that depicts contemporary and antique works of art in the imperial collection of the Yongzheng Emperor (1723-1735) attests to the high value and prestige placed on peachbloom-glazed boxes by members of the imperial family; see Regina Krahl, “Peachbloom”, Chinese Porcelain from the 15th to the 18th Century, Eskenazi, London, 2006, fig. 3.
Sotheby's. Kangxi Porcelain - A Private Collection. Live Auction: 22 September 2020 • 3:00 PM CEST • New York.
