A famille rose'pomegranate' bottle vase, Daoguang seal mark and of the period. Estimate £25,000 - 30,000 (€34,000 - 40,000). Photo: Bonhams.
The oviform body finely enamelled with flowering and fruiting pomegranate trees in a garden landscape with camellia and peonies, framed between borders of ruyi-heads, floral motifs, gilt strings and keyfret bands, the neck with a double-lotus and baoxianghua scrolling meander with bats suspending peaches, all on a turquoise ground, the flaring mouth rim encircled with another ruyi-head band. 33cm (13in) high
Notes: Fruiting pomegranates, with their profusion of seeds, are a visual allegory for abundance, fertility and fecundity, and, at the same time, through a linguistic pun, also carry an auspicious wish of male heirs for generations to come.
In fact, the word for 'seed', 子 (zi), is in Mandarin an homonym for 'son', whilst the first character of the name of the fruit, 石榴, shiliu, is homophone to the word 世 shi, meaning generations. With the close proximity of flowering peonies, symbolising royalty, rank, wealth and honour, the auspicious message may here be related to the birth of many royal sons for generations to come.
Vases of this type, which were very popular at court since the Qianlong period, were often decorated with scenes symbolic of an auspicious wish for heirs, often in the form of the ever-popular theme of 'a hundred boys'. An almost identical vase to the present lot, both in shape and decorative borders, which have also the same chromatic scheme, but with a central scene of boys, was sold by Sotheby's Hong Kong, 7 October 2010, lot 2162. A further similar vase, also with a decoration of boys and related border patterns in a different colour combination, was sold at Bonhams, New Bond Street, 12 May 2011, lot 355. A similar design of pomegranate, but with ruby ground and different borders, is instead found on a slightly smaller vase with a Shende Tang mark, included in the exhibition From the Dragon's Treasure, Museum für Kunsthanwerk, Berlin, 1987, cat. no. 53.
Bonhams. ASIAN ART, 11 May 2015 10:30 BST - LONDON, KNIGHTSBRIDGE