134.
A ‘FAMILLE VERTE’ ROULEAU BALUSTER VASE
Qing dynasty, Kangxi period, early 18th century
45 cm high
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. n. 3709.
The personages depicted on the body of this vase are Daoist immortals and Buddhist sages, and among them Liu Hai, Hanshan e Shide.
Liu Hai is said to have lived during the tenth century. After having passed the imperial examination, consequently occupying important roles in the public administration, he converted to Daoism beginning to travel amidst mountains and practising self-cultivation and meditation, eventually achieving the condition of immortality. His faithful companion is the three-legged toad (chanchu), who is said to have the ability to split out from his mouth silver and gold coins. This toad is also associated with Chang’e, the Goddess of the Moon, and they both are believed to live on the satellite. Liu Hai is therefore considered as a God of Wealth, symbolizing immortality and an emblem of the moon.
According to later sources, such as the “Jingde-Era Record of the Transmission of the Lamp” (Jingde Chuandeng Lu), Hanshan and Shide lived during the Tang dynasty. They were Buddhist monks affiliated to the Chan Guoqingsi monastery on Mount Tiantai. Shide worked in the kitchen, providing occasionally food to Hanshan who was an inspired poet, whose verses form a collection dating to the Tang period. They both were eccentrics, known for their ragged robes, their outbursts of laughter and their mysterious discourses, all behaviours considered as mirrors of wisdom and enlightenment. A frequent motif in all the fields of art, these two personages are invariably depicted together, Shide with his inseparable broom and Hanshan with a scroll
This syncretic religious theme – which combines Daoist and Buddhist deities – was very popular as decorative subject for porcelain already during the Shunzhi period (see as example the rouleau vase in the Butler Collection: Seventeenth Century Jingdezhen Porcelain from the Shanghai Museum and the Butler collection, exhibition catalogue edited by M. Butler and W. Qingzheng, London 2006, pp. 188-189, n. 60).
