278.
A LARGE ‘FAMILLE ROSE’ AND GILT FISH BOWL
Qing dynasty, early Qianlong period
42 x 60 cm
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. n. 3984
This kind of large bowl was usually used in China as an aquarium, as recorded in The Chinese Traveller (The Chinese Traveller. Containing A Geographical, Commercial and Political History of China …, 2 voll., London 1772, II, p. 174): “They ought to be very careful who fed them, as they [goldfishes] are extremely delicate, and sensible of the leaft injury from the weather; they are put in deep large bason, at the bottom of which they frequently put an earthen pan turned upside down, with holes in it, that in the heat of the day they may hate a shelter from the sun; they also throw upon the surface of the water a certain kind of herb, which keeps it always green and cool; they change this water twice or thrice a week, but in such a manner that the fresh enters in while the old is going out.”.
Large basins like this were among the most expensive porcelain exported in the eighteenth century to Europe (C.J.A. Jörg, Chinese Export Porcelain. Chine de commande from the Royal museum of art and history in Brussels, Hong Kong 1989, p. 223, n. 253, for a fishbowl of the same type in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), where they were instead considered as decorative pieces or as plants holders.
However, as demonstrated by the painting with the Portrait of a Collector of 1835 circa by Giuseppe Molteni (1800-1867) (private collection), the Chinese original use was known in Europe, at least from the first half of the nineteenth century.
Two similar pieces – with an exuberant decoration of pheasants amidst flowers, the interior with goldfishes swimming amidst aquatic plants – are in the Castle of Miramare, Trieste, once belonged to Maximilian of Habsburg Emperor of Mexico (1832-1867) (R. Fabiani – F. Morena, Massimiliano e l’Esotismo. Arte Orientale nel Castello di Miramare, exhibition catalogue (Trieste), Venice 2017, nn. 10-11).
