A doucai hexagonal 'landscape' jardinière, Mark and period of Kangxi | 清康熙 闘彩山水人物圖六方折沿花盆 《大清康熙年製》款

The present piece is striking for the delicately painted landscape scenes in doucai palette and belongs to a distinct group of sturdily potted Kangxi mark and period jardinières of hexagonal form. The colours are clear and crisp, applied in a harmonious balance of soft and vibrant tones, endowing the bucolic scene a sense of dynamism and vivacity. The boldness of the enamels and scale of the vessel mark a departure from delicate, restrained doucai porcelains of the Ming dynasty. The brushwork, too, places the jardinière in a mature phase of Qing dynasty porcelain production. Peter Y. K. Lam, in ‘Lang Tingji and the Porcelain of the Late Kangxi Period’, Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, vol. 68, 2003-2004, p. 44, suggests that jardinières of this type were produced in the latter years of the Kangxi reign, possibly commissioned for the Emperor’s 70th birthday, which would have occurred in 1723. 

Related jardinières include one painted with various scenes of immortals and attendants, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Porcelain of the National Palace Museum. Enamelled Ware of the Ch’ing Dynasty, vol. 1, Hong Kong, 1969, pl. 4; and another, sold at Christie’s New York, 16th September 2011, lot 1549. Compare other doucai jardinières, such as a rectangular one, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, accession gu-00156989; and another, sold at Sotheby’s Parke-Bernet Galleries, 15th June 1983, lot 341.