126.
A ‘FAMILLE VERTE’ BALUSTER VASE WITH GILT METAL MOUNT, GUANYIN ZUN
the vase Qing dynasty, Kangxi period, early 18th century; the mount probably French, early 19th century
40,5 cm high
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. n. 3728.
The body of the vase decorated with a flamboyant dragon in persuit of the flaming pearl, the neck with a band of ruyi heads beneath a leiwen frieze and a series of leaves, the decoration painted in black, blue, red, aubergine and two tones of green.
The dragon on this vase, depicted in a dynamic pose with the scaled body rhythmically moving amidst flames, the face with a fierce expression and crowned by a pair of contorted horns, has a pictorial strenght which suggests that its author had in mind a painting as a model.
According to the “Record of Famous Painters of Successive Dynasties” (Lidai Minghua ji) by the scholar Zhang Yanyuan (815-876), the earliest Chinese paintings with dragons dates back to the third century with the works of Cao Buxing. In the following centuries the subject intensely grew in popularity, if an entire section with paintings with dragons is listed in the “Xuanhe Painting Catalogue” (Xuanhe huapu), the inventory of the paintings owned by the emperor Huizong (reigned 1101-1125).
One of the finest classic painting with dragons is certainly the handscroll by Chen Rong (1189-1268), now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (N. Berliner, in Z. Hongxing (edited by), Masterpieces of Chinese Painting 700-1900, exhibition catalogue, London 2013, pp. 198-201, n. 38). The celebrated artist was literally able to give life to the King of Creatures, modulating a sequence of compositions with the nine beasts dominating with their powerful bodies the clouds of the sky and the waves of the sea.
