117.
A ‘BLUE AND WHITE’ BOWL
Qing dynasty, Kangxi period, early 18th century
7,5 x 15,9 cm
Apocryphal Da Ming Chenghua nianzhi six-character mark.
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. n. 3282.
The two scenes depicted on the exterior of this bowl, one with a man on a horse followed by a servant, the other with ladies and attendants just outside a pavilion, are inspired by “The Romance of the Western Chamber” (Xixiangji), the very popular novel which tells the love story between the beautiful Yingying and the aspiring scholar Zhang Sheng. Derived by a plot by Yuan Zhen which first appeared in the Tang dynasty, it was wrote in a definitive form in the thirteenth century by Wang Shifu. During the late Ming dynasty a number of printed books about this novel were published, whose illustrations were often used as source of inspiration also for the decoration of porcelain.
