A CHINESE BLUE AND WHITE 'BAXIAN' YEN YEN VASE

KANGXI 1662-1722

Painted to the exterior in underglaze blue with eight large cartouches, each enclosing one of the Eight Immortals standing in a fenced garden holding their attributes, the panels reserved on a carved ground of peony flowerheads blooming amidst scrolling foliage, with geometric bands encircling the rim, shoulder and foot, together with a reticulated wood stand, 43.8cm. (2)

Provenance: from an English private collection, West Yorkshire, formed in the 1970s and 1980s, purchased from the Reverend G E Grime.

Cf. Oriental Ceramics: The World's Great Collections, vol.7, Musée Guimet, Paris, pl.114 for a comparable Kangxi yen yen vase similarly painted with large cartouches enclosing the Eight Immortals on a diaper ground from the Grandidier Collection; see also R Chen, Qing Shunzhi Kangxi Chao Qinghua Ci (Qing Dynasty Shunzhi and Kangxi Blue and White Porcelain), pp.478-479, no.309 for another similar example also with the panels reserved on diaper in the collection of the Palace Museum.