340.
A ‘BLANC DE CHINE’ GROUP
Qing dynasty, Kangxi period, late 17th-early 18th century
10 cm high
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. n. 3666.
This scene, with two figures in a grotto seated around a chess game board while another standing figure is watching them, has been interpreted as a representation of the legend of Wangzhi, a nineteen years old man who discovered to have only one more year to live. He then visited the God of North Pole and the God of South Pole, respectively responsible for births and deaths, to ask them to elongate his life. After a long chess game, the deities decided to extend Wangzhi life from ninenteen to ninetynine years (P.J. Donnelly, Blanc de Chine, London 1969, p. 179).
The theme of figures playing weiqi, a strategy game which is thought to have been invented by the emperor Shun (2255-2206 BC), was very popular in Chinese art especially in the seventeenth century (J. Ayers, Blanc de Chine. Divine Images in Porcelain, New York 2002, n. 35, for a similar ‘blanc de chine’ group in the Hickley collection).
Another comparable group belonged from the early eighteenth century to the collection of the Medici family in Florence (F. Morena, Dalle Indie orientali alla corte di Toscana. Collezioni di arte cinese e giapponese a Palazzo Pitti, Florence 2005, n. 147); see also the piece formerly in the collection of Augustus the Strong (1670-1733), now in the Porzellansammlung, Dresden (inv. PO 8586).
