424.
A CLOISONNÉ ENAMEL BOWL
Ming dynasty, 16th century
11,8 x 22,5 cm
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. n. 5245.
Raised on a splayed circular foot with an everted mouth, the exterior of the body decorated in polychrome enamels inside finely casted gilt metal cloisons with the classic motif of the ‘Three Friends of Winter’, the centre of the interior with a round medallion with a carp amidst waves and clouds, the inner wall with the wires forming a reticulated motif against a white ground.
The so-called “Three Friends of Winter” (suihan sanyou) is a very popular decorative motif which comprises bamboo, pine and plum, three plants which could resist better than many others to the cold of winter. They incarnate determination, perseverance and flexibility, ideals to which according to the Confucian though the literati should aim. This motif was already known from the Tang dynasty, becoming more widely spread in the Song period thanks also to the work of the court painter Zhao Mengjian (1199-1295).
Among the fishes, carps are the most represented in art, recognizable by the two barbels on the upper lip and the long dorsal fin. Carp is a widespread good auspicious symbol, because of the homophony of its name li with the two words for “profit” and “power, strenght”. Furthermore, it also represents the scholar who try to be successful in the civil service examinations, studying with that tenacity with which, according to a well known legend, every year a carp swims upstream on the Yellow River until it reaches the Dragon Gate where it will be itself transformed into a dragon.
Compare with a similar bowl in the Les Arts Décoratifs-musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris (B. Quette (edited by), Cloisonné. Chinese Enamels from the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties, exhibition catalogue, New York 2011, p. 247, n. 46).
