47.
A WUCAI ENAMELLED ‘BOYS AT PLAY’ JAR
Qing dynasty, circa 1650-1665
28,6 cm high
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. n. 3847.
The jar (missing its cover) is decorated in the wucai palette with ladies and boys at play amidst rockwork in a fenced garden. Within a group of five boys one is holding aloft a helmet with the others trying to reach for it. This subject means five boys competing for distinction, symbolising the blessing for one’s son to achieve outstanding results in the civil service examinations. Helmet (kui) is a pun for “leader”, which also indicates first place in the Palace examination. The five boys refer to the children of Dou Yujun, the scholar, educator and official during the Five Dynasties period, whose eminent sons achieved remarkable success in the civil service examinations, earning him reverence as the ideal parent. The auspicious meaning of success in the imperial examinations is further reinforced in the image of the boy with the crab; the word for crab’s shell (jia) has the additional meaning of “first” as in achieving the highest score in the examination. The boy suspending a lotus (lian), is a homophone for “continuous”, thus creating the rebus “May you continuously give birth to sons”. The boys beating the drum and playing the cymbal may symbolise the arrival of the auspicious wishes of the lion dance, which typically heralds the Chinese New Year and represents joy and happiness, prosperity and peace.
The neck of the jar is decorated with branches bearing peaches and persimmons, lingzhi fungus and other flowers amidst rockwork; persimmon is a homophone to “things” (shi) and therefore has come to symbolise “for things to go well or smoothly”; peach (taozi) and lingzhi, are both associated with immortality and the wish for long life.
Two related wucai jars and covers with a similar subject matter, circa 1660, are in Polesden Lacey, Surrey (inv. nn. NT 1245539 and NT 1245514); see also the Shunzi period jar and cover decorated with the same theme in the Casa-Museu Dr. Anastácio Gonçalves, Lisbon (M.A. Pinto de Matos, A Casa das Porcelanas. Cerâmica Chinesa da Casa-Museu Dr. Anastácio Gonçalves, Lisboa, Lisbon 1996, pp. 164-165, n. 82); another wucai enamelled jar and cover with the same decorative subject belonged to the collection of Augustus the Strong (1670-1733), now in the Porzellansammlung in Dresden (inv. n. PO 6854).
