8 八 Peaches 5 五 Bats Bowl

AN AUSPICIOUS 8 八 PEACHES 5 五 BATS
珐琅彩 FALANGCAI ENAMEL BOWL.


The bowl with rounded sides resting on a short foot.
Finely enamelled around the exterior with three iron-red bats in flight among leafy, fruiting, blossoming peach boughs carrying five peaches.
The five ripe fruit delicately painted in varying colour hues from pink to lemon lime green.
The knotted boughs bearing pinkish white blooms, buds and leafage in exquisite shades of green and blue.
Branching around the outside of the bowl, extending over the rim into the interior, revealing more buds and three peaches, two soaring iron red bats.

The whole set against an enamel snow white ground.

The base inscribed in blue enamel with a four-character Yongzheng Period reign mark within a double square, against a white ground.

The subtle gradations of shaded pink and pale lemon yellow green enamels to depict the skin of the peach.
The brilliance of the tones of translucent green and turquoise used for the long pointed leaves.
The definition in the gnarled boughs, all this and more, combine to produce a masterpiece that required the highest level of technical and artistic skills on the part of the artist who produced this piece of flawless quality.

Apart from the very naturalistic depiction of the design, the Peach and Bats' decoration on this bowl are also among the richest in its symbolism.

The bowl is decorated with 8八 peaches.

Peaches are perhaps China's most auspicious fruit, having a long tradition as omens of longevity and harbingers of happiness.
The peach is one of the three fruits of the sanduo ‘Three Abundances’ together with the pomegranate and finger citron.
The ‘Peaches of Immortality’, which are said to grow in the garden of Xi Wang Mu, the Queen Mother of the West, flower only once every three thousand years, take three thousand years to bear fruit, another three thousand years to ripen, and are then offered in a banquet to the immortals.

The number eight in Chinese is 八, which is pronounced "bā".
In Chinese culture, the number eight is considered very lucky and is associated with wealth, success, prosperity, and status.
This is because the pronunciation of "bā" is similar to the word "fā", which means "to make good fortune .
8 has long been regarded as the luckiest number in Chinese culture. The number 8 also alludes to the 8 Immortals.

The 5 五 red bats 蝙蝠 painted on the bowl are among the most popular themes in Chinese decorative arts.

Red bats provide a rebus or visual pun for vast good fortune, and five bats provide a rebus for Wu Fu.
Longevity ‘shou’ (壽), wealth ‘fu’ (富), health and composure ‘kangning’ (康寧), love of virtue ‘xin hao de’ (修好德), and the desire to have a peaceful death in old age ‘kao zhong ming’ (考終命)

The two bats painted upside down provide a further rebus.
The word for ‘upside down’, dao, is pronounced similarly to the word for ‘arriving’, and thus an upside-down bat signifies 'happiness is arriving'

This exquisite design of fruiting, flowering branches of peaches which rise from the foot, turn over the rim into the inside, is peculiar to the Yongzheng period,

Formerly the property of a Japanese collector

This magnificent bowl is comparable in quality to the finest works produced in the Imperial Workshops of the Imperial Palace, 造 辦 處 Zaobanchu .


Please refer to the images for details as they also form the description.

Depending on your computer monitor / phone / etc colour may vary to actual

Excellent Condition.

Width about : 15.9 cm
Height about : 8.5 cm

A$7,250