DIMENSIONS

Height: 7 ½ inches

Width: 10 inches

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PROVENANCE

Berwald Oriental Art, London, 2001

 

CATALOGUE NOTES

A set of four deep, double-sided plaques painted in famille verte enamels, all of rectangular shape and finely painted in the "Master of the Rocks" style with figures and landscapes. All four mounted on separate stands. The first painted with a traveler on a mule crossing a bridge with a laden servant and a mountainous landscape; the other side with an interior scene of an elderly be-whiskered seated official watching two small boys dancing and playing before him. The second with a dismounted rider waiting by a bridge while a servant pulls the obstinate mule along and across the bridge. In the distance, behind a wood, a pavilion can be seen; the other side with a scene of a scholar seated on the banks of a river beneath a willow with two boys, one of whom carries his scrolls, the other torments a pair of swimming ducks. The third depicts an equestrian warrior with two others greeting an elegant lady with two small boys, one in her arms. All are smiling -- this is perhaps a happy homecoming; the other side painted with a large bird on a branch laden with persimmons, issuing from stylized rockwork. Small insects fry around the fruit. The fourth with two men and two women flirting and gesturing with their open fans on a terrace outside a garden pavilion. All are smiling. The reverse is painted with a large bird on a gnarled branch watching two butterflies flying above peonies, small bamboo, and other flowering plants issuing from very stylized and geometric rockwork.