89.
A PAIR OF ‘BLUE AND WHITE’ BOTTLE VASES
Qing dynasty, Kangxi period, early 18th century
19 cm high each
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. nn. 3499, 3504.
The globular body of both the bottles rising to a long cylindrical neck with two horizontal ribs and splayed mouth, the decoration showing to the body some of the ‘Hundred Antiquities’ (bogu), the neck with floral sprays and stylized leaves.
The term bogu, usually translated in English as “Hundred antiquities”, refers to a very popular decorative motif which includes an unspecified number of objects of various types (vases, books, censers, but also flowers, miniaturized trees, and so on), each characterized by a particular symbolism, most of them in some ways related to antiques.
This pattern came to be used during the Northern Song dynasty, and could be related to the spread of the collectionism of ancient pre-dynastic bronzes, favoured by literati and aristocrats, and among them in particular by emperor Huizong who in 1123 commissioned to Wang Fu an illustrated catalogue of his collection, the “Drawings and Lists of all the Antiquities stored in the Xuanhe Palace” (Chongxiu Xuanhe bogu tulu), a title which contain the same term bogu.
