Chinese Porcelain Framed Famille Rose Plaque of Birds With Prunus and Cherry Trees

Details

Description

Chinese Famille Rose Porcelain Plaque with Lovebirds and Plum Blossom, Framed

20th Century

Two little birds with rust-orange caps sit … Read more Chinese Famille Rose Porcelain Plaque with Lovebirds and Plum Blossom, Framed

20th Century

Two little birds with rust-orange caps sit shoulder to shoulder on a flowering plum branch, painted in famille rose enamels on a porcelain panel with a soft celadon-white ground. One looks out at you and the other turns away, tails crossed behind them. The blossom runs from the lower left up into the top right corner in pinks and whites, with a spray of bright red berries off to the side and turquoise-green leaves scattered through, and the whole upper corner is left empty so the eye has somewhere to rest.

The painting is unusually fine for its type — the feathers stippled and hair-stroked, the petals shaded individually, the old wood streaked in black over pale turquoise. It comes in a black-lacquered frame with a carved gilt key-fret border, which is exactly the right amount of formality for a picture this quiet. In Chinese painting a pair of birds on one branch is shorthand for a happy marriage, which makes it an unusually thoughtful wedding or anniversary present.

Hang it where it can be looked at closely: over a chest in an entry hall, above a bedside table, in a powder room, or as one of a group on a picture wall of mixed frames. It reads beautifully against a deep color — forest green, oxblood, ink blue — and just as well against plain white. Horizontal format, so it also sits happily on a picture ledge or leaning on a mantel.

Dimensions (framed)
Height: 11½ inches (29.2 cm)
Width: 17 inches (43.2 cm)

Provenance
Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge.

Historical Context
Bird-and-flower painting, huaniao hua, is one of the long-established categories of Chinese painting, and from the late Qing period onward the enamellers of Jingdezhen carried it directly onto flat porcelain plaques made to be framed and hung as pictures rather than used. The subject here belongs to the turn of the year: plum is the first of the fruit trees to flower, often while snow is still on the ground, and Welch records it among the most freighted of Chinese plant motifs, standing for endurance, renewal and the passage from winter into spring, while the red-berried nandina is a plant of the same season and a fixture of New Year decoration. The two birds carry the message plainly, a pair perched together being a direct emblem of conjugal happiness, love and fidelity.

Ref: NY10463-npir See less