236.
A ‘FAMILLE ROSE’ BALUSTER VASE
Qing dynasty, Yongzheng period
44 cm high
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. n. 5306.
Xiwangmu, the Queen Mother of the West, in this vase depicted with her attendant inside a peach-shaped reserve above a partially visible large shou character (“longevity”) filled with a geometric decoration, is a very popular goddess of Chinese mythology. Even if her origins can be dated back to the Shang dynasty, the cult for Xiwangmu spread from the Warring States period when she entered in the Daoist pantheon, as proved by the mention about her in a text by the philosopher Zhuangzi (fourth century BC) (K. Schipper, in Taoism and the Arts of China, exhibition catalogue, Chicago 2000, p. 36). Ancient stories describes her as a beautiful courtly lady who lived in a magnificent palace among the peaks of the legendary Kunlun Mountains, where she used to receive other deities, offering them the peaches of immortality she cultivated in the garden of the residence. Often accompanied by a phoenix and young female attendants, Xiwangmu is a common iconographic motif in all the fields of Chinese art, used also as decoration for porcelain.
The neck is decorated with pomegranates (shiliu), a symbol of fertility and the wish for progeny because of their many seeds.
