KANGXI SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN UNDERGLAZE-BLUE AND OF THE PERIOD (1662-1722)

This elegant water pot belongs to an elite group of small scholar’s objects made during the Kangxi reign which employed a rare combination of underglaze copper-red and overglaze green, and black. Compare to four water pots of this design, one in the Baur Collection, illustrated in Chinese Ceramics in The Baur Collection, vol. 2, no. 148; one in the Percival David Foundation on loan to the British Museum, illustrated in Rosemary Scott, Illustrated Catalogue of Qing Enamelled Ware in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, 1991, p.59, no. B706; one in the Shanghai Museum, see Kangxi Porcelain Wares from the Shanghai Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1998, no. 84; one illustrated in the Chang Foundation, illustrated in One Thousand Years of Jingdezhen, Tokyo, 2006, p. 49, no. 31. Compare also with another example in the Musée Guimet painted with two additional blossoms in overglaze purple and blue, illustrated in The World’s Great Collections, Oriental Ceramics, vol.7, Musée Guimet, Paris, Tokyo, 1981, no. 42.
Also included in this group are globular water pots painted with a comparable design, such as an example in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Kangxi Yongzheng Qianlong: Qing Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection, Beijing, 1989, p. 41, no. 24; in the Baur Collection, illustrated in Chinese Ceramics in The Baur Collection, vol. 2, 1999, no. 149; and from the Meiyintang Collection, sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 7 April 2011, lot 2.