Important Chinese Art including Jades from the De An Tang Collection and Gardens of Pleasure – Erotic Art from the Bertholet Collection
Important Chinese Art including Jades from the De An Tang Collection and Gardens of Pleasure – Erotic Art from the Bertholet Collection
Property from the Bertholet Collection 貝氏情色藝術珍藏
Auction Closed
April 29, 06:28 AM GMT
Estimate
90,000 - 120,000 HKD
Lot Details
Description
Property from the Bertholet Collection
Subtle Pleasures
Qing dynasty, 19th century
貝氏情色藝術珍藏
清十九世紀 〈秘戲〉 一冊八幀全 設色絹本
a complete album of 8 paintings, ink and colour on silk, the last leaf with an apocryphal signature of Qiu Ying, followed by a seal impression reading shizhou
末頁仿款「仇英」,鈐「十州」印。
26 by 22 cm
Ferdinand M. Bertholet, Les Jardins du Plaisir: Érotisme et art dans la Chine ancienne / Gardens of Pleasure: Eroticism and Art in China, Paris, 2003 (rev. English ed., Munich, Berlin, London, New York, 2010), cover and pp. 160-171.
貝索烈,《Les Jardins du Plaisir: Érotisme et art dans la Chine ancienne / Gardens of Pleasure: Eroticism and Art in China》,巴黎,2003年(英文再版,慕尼黑、柏林、倫敦、紐約,2010年),頁160-171
Delicately painted with soft colouration and accentuated by bright pigments such as malachite and azurite, the album follows the late 18th-century artistic style of workshops in Suzhou. The set presents a range of pictures telling stories of seduction, voyeurism and consummation. One scene shows an elder peep over a screen as a man performs cunnilingus on his partner. Another scene depicts a jealous wife punishing her husband for favouritism towards his concubine. The last scene is remarkable for skillfully putting the viewer in the position of a voyeur; a couple is visible in a passionate embrace through the half-opened window.
Cédric Laurent suggests that this album was a collaborative effort of several artists who drew inspiration from study sketches or model images readily available in the workshops (Le Palais du printemps, op. cit., p. 143).