AN IMPERIAL POLYCHROME IVORY BOWL AND COVER

Details

AN IMPERIAL POLYCHROME IVORY BOWL AND COVER
QING DYNASTY, 18TH CENTURY

With slightly rounded sides rising to an everted rim, delicately carved to the exterior with a flowering and fruiting knarled persimmon tree which extends around the bowl and beneath it to form the foot ring, to one side with a ruyi sceptre tied to a persimmon spray with a tasselled cord, the cover carved with a twisted vine bearing two melons raised at the centre to form a finial
4 1/8 in. (11.7 cm.) diam.

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Lot Essay

The decoration of this bowl is rich in symbolism. Persimmons, shi, are a rebus for 'things', and ruyi represents 'as you wish', together these symbols form shishi ruyi, meaning 'may everything be as you wish'.

An ivory bowl and cover of similar form but decorated with peaches and bats is preserved in the collection of the Palace Museum and is illustrated in The Palace Museum Collection of Elite Carvings, Beijing, 2002, p. 218, no. 166.

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