A RARE CHINESE IMPERIAL ‘HEHE ERXIAN’ TROMPE L’OEIL INCENSE DISH

A RARE CHINESE IMPERIAL ‘HEHE ERXIAN’ TROMPE L’OEIL INCENSE DISH
SIX CHARACTER JIAQING MARK AND OF THE PERIOD 1796-1820

Painted in yangcai enamels, the twin Gods of Harmony and Unity stand holding a slightly open box, they wear blue and iron-red robes and have Liu Hai’s three-legged toad climbing up their backs. The dish is enamelled turquoise and is applied with eight auspicious Daoist emblems including silver and gold ingots, gold, yellow and red coins, a horn and a branch of red coral, all within a square scroll pink border, 12cm.

Provenance: the collection of Miss Elizabeth Augusta Grosvenor Guest (1879-1960), grand-daughter of Richard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of Westminster (1795-1869), and grand-daughter of Lady Charlotte Guest (later Schreiber, 1812-95).

The Hehe Erxian were believed to preside over happy marriages and are derived from two famous poet-monks of the Tang dynasty, Hanshan and Shide.

The Imperial Workshop Records, (Huoji dang), note that in the forty-fifth year of Qianlong (1781), eighty incense dishes with the same trompe l’oeil designs were sent to the Imperial court from Jiujiang guan as tributes, half with a yellow ground and half with turquoise ground. Two examples are held by The National Palace Museum Collection in Taipei also set with ingots, coins and coral but one with a spotty horse to the centre on a yellow ground, the other with an elephant on a turquoise ground. Cf. Chih-en Chen, Fooling the eye: trompe l’oeil porcelain in High Qing China, figs.11 and 12, where the above dishes are illustrated. The present dish has an iron red Jiaqing mark so cannot be one of the forty turquoise ground dishes of 1781, but may be either part of a later order, or a replacement to the Qianlong dishes.

See also Daguerre, 25th September 2020, lot 59, for a damaged example of the Qianlong prototype. The standing figures set in the centre of this dish also relate to figural snuff bottles with similar modelling and treatment of the robes. Cf. Hugh Moss, Victor Graham and Ka Bo Tsang, a Treasury of Chinese Snuff Bottles, The Mary and George Bloch Collection, vol.6, nos.1226, 1227 and 1228. See also Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 29th November 2019, lot 555.

清嘉慶 御製粉彩合和二仙香插
《大清嘉慶年制》礬紅篆書款
來源：伊麗莎白·格羅夫納·格斯特女士（1879-1960）收藏。