拍賣筆記 vol.196 蘇富比香港：3360萬港元成交，清康熙琺瑯彩胭脂紫地開光花卉紋盌 - A Fine And Exceptionally Enamelled Ruby-Ground Falangcai 'Floral' Bowl, Blue-Enamel Yuzhi Mark And Period Of Kangxi

器採高嶺為胎，質密細膩，形雅圓弧，乃景德鎮御窰上品。跋涉送京，宮中添琺瑯，外壁澀胎厚施彩，胭脂紫金色為地，瑰麗眩目。

四面花式開光，明黃背景，烘托華葩綻香濃。丁香翠青繪石榴、嬌粉金蕊畫牡丹、紅瓣橘蕾綴山茶、嫩粉淡綠頌葵花。四時花卉風姿綽約，濃淡相競。間飾俯仰蓮花兩兩相對，湛藍瓣葉、明黃花蕊、魏紅點綴，配以綠葉曲卷妙連枝，貫串全景之餘，色彩對比鮮明奪目，異風洋溢。盌內巧留白，外底藍料書「康熙御製」四字雙框款，彰顯清初內宮絕藝巧技。

2200萬起拍，2400、2600拍賣官叫了兩口，2800萬電話carrie，等待了幾分鐘，沒有人爭奪，2800萬落槌！6805號牌。

The bowl is in exceptionally good condition. The enamels are superbly preserved with only very few minuscule enamel flakes to the mark and one to the rim, all of which are barely visible, the latter possibly associated with the firing.

整體品相極佳，釉彩保存完好。僅見口沿外及底款處有細微剝釉，但並不顯眼。口沿外細小處的剝釉可能在燒製過程中產生。

上手圖：

PROPERTY FROM CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF ART, SOLD TO BENEFIT THE ACQUISITION FUND | 卡内基美術館珍藏中國藝術品 所得收益將惠於其購藏基金

清康熙　琺瑯彩胭脂紫地開光花卉紋盌 《康熙御製》藍料款

A fine and exceptionally enamelled ruby-ground falangcai 'floral' bowl, Blue-enamel yuzhi mark and period of Kangxi

Premium Lot

May 7, 02:00 PM HKT

Estimate

40,000,000 - 60,000,000 HKD

d. 12.5 cm

來源

喬治．哈撒韋．泰貝（1859-1940年）收藏，1935年之前，此後家族傳承

捐贈予卡內基美術館，匹茲堡，1958年

紫金

康蕊君

試論中國陶瓷史上，帝王親自投身主導御瓷燒造，進而促使重大技術突破與進步者，非康熙皇帝莫屬。在此之前，即使陶瓷燒製傳統已數千年，無見如此熱衷於鑽研瓷藝之君主，甚至廢寢忘食。此件琺瑯彩盌，明豔光燦，就是康熙皇帝雄心萬丈領導下之成就。

康熙一朝，曾停燒逾半世紀的江西景德鎮御窰廠，早已依旨復燒，並交由原任職内廷的八旗子弟劉源（約1641-1691年）督陶，設計並燒製當朝官窰瓷器，如此安排，皇帝雖能命御窰製作各類瓷作，無奈距離遙遠，僅能被動地觀察瓷器燒造成果，無法主動與匠人交流，參與製作過程。

康熙帝顯然並不滿足於此，而冀望能親自帶動技術革新，不僅是瓷藝，並加速發展各種製作實用或珍貴器物的技藝。因此，作坊需遷至京城。康熙皇帝欲於紫禁城內設立各類作坊，製作兵器、科學儀器、日常用品、以及不同材質的各類工藝品。此舉不僅前所未聞，且窒礙難行。如何在警備森嚴的紫禁城內，容納作坊需數以百計的工匠，還需應付川流不息的來往人、貨，更別說作坊衍生之噪音、煙塵、異味、熱氣，與祝融風險，如此種種，豈能鄰近帝王起居宮殿。然而，康熙無畏諸多不便與所需心力， 1693年成立了造辦處作坊。

康熙皇帝對於科學興趣濃厚，於此招募全國最精良的人才與匠役，並詔命具有科學、藝術或工藝技能的歐洲傳教士一同參與。雖然在宮殿內無法燒柴窰，但法國利摩日傳來的琺瑯器物，顯然促成造辦處琺瑯作之設立，在金屬器、料胎，或在景德鎮御窰燒成的瓷胎上添繪琺瑯。

一如本品，康熙朝琺瑯作的成就，不僅是技術上的創新，風格亦不落窠臼。最初始使用歐洲生產的琺瑯原料，以「琺瑯彩」一名形容在紫禁城內燒製之器，意味源自西洋之彩料。不久，便得以逐漸開發本土彩料使用。第一批燒成的琺瑯彩瓷，鮮豔華美，無與倫比，因西洋彩料的特色，使得色調豐富多樣，發色濃麗耀眼。每一種顏色都是各別調製，精準繪於獨立區塊或細節上，即使同時期製作的琺瑯彩瓷，猶件件相異。如此繁複工法，很快就簡化至僅使用部分固定色調，以求更佳掌握燒成結果，增加產量，減少失敗。

本件琺瑯彩盌最為人稱道的，要屬其胭脂紫地，完美亦柔和，統整全品各種色調，使整體和諧悅目。紫彩，於西洋已存在數百年，在中國卻是初見。膠態金，即奈米顆粒黃金懸浮液體，調入琺瑯彩可燒出胭脂紫色調。早至漢朝（西元前206年 – 西元220年），黃金已廣得珍視，其中「紫金」最是珍逸，常得道家、煉金士與科學家的鑽研與煉製，極為珍稀，未普及至一般工藝匠師。紫彩雖未及中原，在西方早已應用數世紀，最早可溯至羅馬時期玻璃器，十七世紀以降，更常見於西方彩繪玻璃，此彩以德國物理學家為名，稱為「卡希烏斯紫」。此配方僅記載於德國煉金士及玻璃工匠 Johannes Kunckel von Löwenstern（約1630-1703年）逝世後出版的《Collegium Physico-Chymicum Experimentale》或《Laboratorium Chymicum》。1716年出版後，經傳教士帶至北京，應用於本品之上。

如本品所示，欲燒出如此均勻的紫調，甚是困難，比較台北故宮博物院收藏多件類例，此時期試驗燒製的紫彩，往往滯結不勻且帶斑點，雖非成功仍珍藏至今，足見稀貴，見王竹平，〈金紅彩料在康雍時期琺瑯彩的使用情形〉，余珮瑾編，《金成旭映：清雍正琺瑯彩瓷》，台北，2013年，頁298-313。一開始試燒時，以不同朝代的白釉盃、盌為胎，但施琺瑯彩在瓷釉上面效果不佳，遂從景德鎮送來素燒瓷胎，希求琺瑯彩能在無釉瓷面表現更穩定。

如此新穎的材料與技術，能在本品上完美燒成，實為傑作。瓷胎製於景德鎮御窰廠，盌心、圈足內施釉，外壁保留素胎無釉，證實琺瑯彩料在素胎上能成功燒製。同時，西洋琺瑯彩不似景德鎮國產彩料透明，正好能用以施彩地，填滿無釉的外壁。康熙琺瑯彩瓷滿繪的紋飾風格，應運而生。

細觀之，此盌或為清宮第一批成功試燒出「卡希烏斯紫」的琺瑯彩瓷，其中一特徵顯與後期作例相異，珍稀罕見，且璀璨動人。金作為胭脂紫彩的重要發色劑，烤燒後已熔融不得見，而本品可謂「紫金」之經典範例，紫彩厚處，隱約金光燦燦，或為未完全熔融的金顆粒，或是烤燒過程產生的析金。根據台北故宮博物院專文研究，此類微米級金顆粒，需五十倍至二百倍顯微鏡頭，方能清晰觀察。

紋飾開光內濃厚明亮的黃彩地，與開光之間兩兩相對的寶蓮牡丹，花瓣飽和湛艷的藍彩，僅見於康熙朝年代最早、最精美的琺瑯彩瓷，與當時景德鎮燒製的黃、藍彩截然不同，也與此後燒製的琺瑯彩迥異。

不僅施彩技術創新，本品的紋飾也不囿於傳統，展現了極為巧妙的風格融合。外壁均分為四開光，乃康熙琺瑯彩常見構圖，或因西洋畫師尚未熟悉繪圖於立體物件所致。此類琺瑯彩盌上，四面繪的並非傳統中式花卉紋，而是更加形式化，看似彼此相似，卻又非現實自然界中存在的花卉品種（余珮瑾，前述出處，頁305，插圖3、4；圖一）。本盌紋飾設計，更新穎脫俗。四面開光各以藤葉藍花相隔，柔軟蜿蜒的邊框，宛若巴洛克風格，四面主花盛放，邊綴枝葉、花苞，饒富中式趣味。

以真實花卉演示四季，淡雅紫色的石榴花，花瓣邊沿漸淡，花苞綴以最柔嫩的青調，花瓣背面呈粉紅色，更顯層次豐美；嫣紅金燦的牡丹，明艷華貴，氣勢萬丈，綠葉環繞相襯；蜀葵伴著花苞，青翠至粉紅，細緻鮮麗；還有一蕊深紅帶紫的山茶花，木質莖相托，一側金橘色花苞猶待放。如此繁複、形式化，但仍自然寫實的紋飾，極為罕見；比較一件牡丹蜀葵紋盌，色調較少，主花僅三，以黃、綠彩為主，相襯紫紅地（余珮瑾，前述出處，圖版003；圖二）。

此件康熙琺瑯彩盌，最與眾不同的要屬黃色開光與其之間的藍花，此或為孤例。更以不同視角描繪下上相對的花蕊，花底、側姿、花心皆一覽無遺，精湛酣暢，令人讚嘆。

相類藝術風格，可見於亨利奈特舊藏一件康熙粉紅地琺瑯彩盌，售於香港蘇富比2018年4月3日，編號1（圖三），粉紅地上，四面粉藍地開光，內繪傳統中式花卉，開光之間以前所未見的新穎花卉紋相綴。新舊風格交融共演，與本品類同，或為宮廷匠師初見西洋審美，順勢而生之藝術風格。

這樣的成果，顯然讓康熙皇帝龍心大悅，此意清楚記錄於本品與相類琺瑯彩瓷上，以特殊年款突顯帝王親身亦參與製作。景德鎮官窰瓷，多在燒造前以釉下青花書年款，此批琺瑯彩瓷，則是在紫禁城作坊內，以釉上彩書款。為了明確區分，此批由皇帝督造之珍品，書「御製」款，而非一般的「年製」款。「御製」款，可謂最罕見的瓷器款識。幾年之後，雍正朝已不再使用，即使琺瑯彩瓷亦同（景德鎮製琺瑯彩瓷，改書釉下青花款）。

「康熙御製」款，亦可見於部分琺瑯作製作的金屬器，此外僅見於造辦處製作的最精良之科學儀器，可見深得君心。參考《清宮西洋儀器》，北京，1999年，圖版60、61，二件銀製儀器，圖版98、99，象限儀，及圖版106，製作於1714年（圖四）。「康熙御製」，無庸僅能用於少數皇帝認可，足以代表自身成就之器，可謂康熙皇帝本人核可之印記。

Provenance

Collection of George Hathaway Taber (1859-1940), Pittsburgh, prior to 1935, and thence by descent.

Gifted to the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, 1958.

exceptionally created with utmost attention, the deep rounded body rising from a short foot to a gently flared rim, the body fired in the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen and thereafter enamelled in the Imperial Workshops in the Forbidden City in Beijing, exquisitely decorated using imported enamels with four main panels with curved outlines borrowed from baroque designs, each panel enclosing a different floral bloom against a most vibrant yellow ground, the lilac pomegranate blossom, pink peony, pink and green hollyhock, and deep purple camillia representing the four seasons, the panels spaced out by royal blue stylised flowers reserved on a purplish ruby-red ground showcasing a distinctive golden sheen, the interior and base left white, the latter enamelled in blue with a four-character yuzhi mark within a double square

Purple-Gold

Regina Krahl

One of the most dramatic and consequential interventions in the history of China’s porcelain production was undoubtedly the Kangxi Emperor’s (r. 1662 – 1722) decision to involve himself personally in its development. No Chinese ruler before or after him appears to have been that passionate to breathe new life into this almost millennial craft, even to the point of making personal sacrifices. This glorious bowl is a direct result of that Emperor’s ambitious agenda.

The Kangxi Emperor had already revived the imperial porcelain manufacture at Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province after a hiatus of over half a century when it had been inactive, and had commissioned a bannerman serving at the Inner Court in Beijing, Liu Yuan (c. 1641 – c. 1691), to produce ceramic designs for the imperial kilns in the south. Thus, he could send to the kilns orders of particular patterns, but otherwise he was restricted to the passive role of an observer, since no direct exchange with the potters was possible.

That role, the Kangxi Emperor was clearly not satisfied with. He wanted to participate in and thus expedite China’s technical progress on many different fronts, not only the advancement of ceramics, but the development of any practical and luxury goods. To this end, the manufacturing process had to be brought to Beijing. In order to take part in the operations himself, he therefore endeavoured to establish workshops inside the Forbidden City to produce or part-produce weapons, scientific instruments, items for daily life, as well as works of art in a wide range of materials. At court, this must have seemed an almost shocking idea, forbiddingly difficult to implement. Workshops requiring the presence of hundreds of workers inside the usually restricted, ‘forbidden’ parts of the imperial precinct, workshops creating constant movement of men and supplies, workshops producing noise, dirt, smells, heat and the danger of fires must have seemed totally undesirable or outright impractical in close proximity to the Emperor’s living quarters. Yet the Kangxi Emperor was not deterred, he did not fear personal inconveniences nor the hours he would have to put in, and in 1693 the first workshops had been set up.

Being fervently interested in the sciences, he assembled China’s foremost scientific minds and her most accomplished craftsmen in his workshops and confronted them with the outstanding scientists, mechanics and artisans the Jesuit orders had sent from Europe to impress and thereby gain access to him. The production of porcelain itself was indeed not feasible at this location; but gifts of Limoges enamelware apparently brought on the idea to establish an enamelling workshop, where metalwork, glass, and ready-made porcelains provided by the Jingdezhen kilns could be decorated.

The outcome was revolutionary, as the present bowl documents, not only technically but also stylistically. The first works were undertaken with enamel raw materials supplied by the Europeans, which gave rise to the term falangcai, ‘foreign colours’, for pieces enamelled in the Forbidden City, even though soon after, the enamels were locally produced. What makes the earliest falangcai pieces so striking is that their range of colours is so varied and their tones are so intense. Each colour appears to have been individually prepared for its use on a particular area or detail of a design, so that even contemporary pieces differ considerably from each other. This complexity was soon lost, as the workshops seem to have reduced the palette to a more limited number, favouring enamel recipes that provided predictable outcomes, so as to be able to produce larger quantities with fewer failures.

Most remarkable on the present bowl is of course the superb, subtle ruby-red berry colour of the background, which consolidates the disparate enamels into a harmonious colour scheme. Colloidal gold, that is gold dispersed in solutions in the form of nanoparticles, can give to these a ruby-red colour. In China, this property of gold was admired already in the Han dynasty (206 BC – AD 220) and ‘purple gold’ (zi jin) was held in the highest esteem throughout the country’s mediaeval past, but its secret occupied philosophers, alchemists and natural scientists engaged in aurifaction, and did not reach artists and artisans. While purple enamel tones were totally new to Chinese craftsmen, they had been used in Western crafts for centuries. Their occasional use in late Roman glass has been proven, but from the 17th century onwards the technique, known as ‘Purple of Cassius’, named after a German physician, was regularly applied in the West for colouring glass. Yet its secret was properly explained only in the Collegium Physico-Chymicum Experimentale, or Laboratorium Chymicum by the German alchemist and glass maker Johannes Kunckel von Löwenstern (c. 1630 – 1703), posthumously published in 1716 – just in time for the Jesuits to bring it to Beijing and to try it out on this bowl.

The difficulty to achieve an even purple colour, as seen here, is documented by many purple enamelled experimental pieces in the Palace Museum, Taipei, preserved there until today even though their uneven and spotty enamelling must have been considered a failure (they are discussed by Wang Zhuping in Yu Pei-chin, ed., Yin cheng xu ying. Qing Yongzheng falangcai ci/Porcelain with Painted Enamels of Qing Yongzheng Period (1723-1735), Taipei, 2013, pp. 298-313). For these trials, monochrome white cups and bowls from various different periods had been chosen, probably selected at random from the palace storerooms. That the application of the purple enamel on the porcelain glaze proved unsatisfactory may have led to the idea to order unglazed or only partly glazed porcelain blanks from Jingdezhen, in the hope that the unglazed biscuit would provide a more stable ground for the new enamels.

The present bowl is a masterpiece, where this new technique was accomplished to perfection. The porcelain vessel was supplied by Jingdezhen with a glazed inside and base, but was left unglazed outside, and proves the success of enamelling the biscuit. In turn, this also dictated an overall decoration, since the rough unglazed surface was not meant to be seen; and the new, totally opaque enamels, very different from the transparent enamels used at Jingdezhen at the time, were superbly suited to hide it completely.

That our bowl may have been among the first successful experiments with Purple of Cassius is suggested by a fascinating, extremely rare particularity it exhibits, not apparent on later pieces. While the crucial colourant of the puce enamel – gold – is visually otherwise not perceptible on the fired vessel, the present bowl exhibits true ‘purple-gold’, as the purple surface shows in places a distinct golden sheen, probably due to not fully dissolved gold particles. In the experimental pieces examined at the Taipei Palace Museum, the presence of tiny gold particles could only be proven through magnification times 50 or times 200.

The intense, deep egg yellow of the panels and the vivid royal blue of the stylized flowers spacing out the panels equally are only found on the best and earliest Kangxi falangcai wares, and are fundamentally different from the much weaker yellows and blues seen on contemporary ‘famille verte’ wares from Jingdezhen and on any later falangcai.

Like the enamelling technique, the painted motifs on this bowl also manifest a complete break with tradition and display a most intriguing hybrid character. The surface division into four sectors, which is often seen of Kangxi falangcai, may owe its original concept to Western artists unfamiliar with free-hand painting on three-dimensional objects. On the majority of such bowls, the four blooms are also not Chinese in style, being highly stylized, more or less identical, and unrecognizable as flowers in nature (Yu Pei-chin, op.cit., p. 305, fig. 3 or 4) (fig. 1). The present design is much more inventive. While the surface is divided into panels with curved outlines that evoke baroque panelling, the four main blooms show distinct Chinese characteristics, rendering different identifiable flowers with their matching buds and leaves.

The seasons are represented by a pomegranate blossom with small buds in a lilac colour, its petals edged with the palest of greens and displaying pink undersides; a fluffy, bright pink peony surrounded by foliage; an exquisite hollyhock with tiny buds in a subtle melange of pink and green; and a deep purple camellia growing on a wooden stem, its buds still enveloped in a hull of orangey petals. Such complex formalized, yet naturalistic designs are otherwise rare; compare a bowl with a simpler design of only three naturalistic blooms, in a much narrower colour scheme of yellows and greens on a purple ground (Yu Pei-chin, op.cit., pl. 003)(fig. 2).

The most idiosyncratic design feature of this bowl, however, which may well be unique, is provided by the blue flowers inserted between the yellow panels. In a breath-taking quest for multi-perspectivity, fanciful blooms are here presented from different angles, showing their undersides, profiles and inner centres all at the same time.

Closely comparable in its stylistic approach is the H.M. Knight Kangxi falangcai bowl sold in these rooms, 3rd April 2018, lot 1 (fig. 3), which shows four flower motifs in classic Chinese style in pale blue panels on a paler ruby-pink ground, similarly interspersed with highly original, non-traditional floral motifs. In both cases, this hybrid decoration concept can be read as the imperial artisans’ first reactions to their sudden immediate confrontation with Western aesthetic concepts.

That the Kangxi Emperor was pleased with this outcome is unmistakeably recorded on this and related vessels. The close imperial involvement found lasting, indelible reference in the form of the reign mark. While pieces decorated in Jingdezhen bear an underglaze-blue reign mark, inscribed before firing, those painted in the imperial workshops of the Forbidden City were marked there in enamel. To distinguish these pieces produced under the direct scrutiny of the Emperor from other imperial porcelains made for the court, they were inscribed with the distinctive epithet yu zhi, ‘made to imperial order’, or ‘for imperial use’ rather than the otherwise common ‘nian zhi’, ‘made in the years of’. This yu zhi mark represents one of the rarest porcelain reign marks ever in use. A few years later, in the Yongzheng period, it was no longer inscribed even on falangcai wares (but appears, in underglaze blue, on some deliberate falangcai copies made at Jingdezhen).

The Kangxi yu zhi mark was also inscribed on a few metal wares enamelled in the same workshops, but appears otherwise only on some extremely finely worked scientific instruments constructed in the Forbidden City, whose successful development was particularly close to the Emperor’s heart; see, for example, Liu Lu, ed., Qing gong xiyang yiqi/Scientific and Technical Instruments of the Qing Dynasty, Beijing, 1999, pls 60 and 61 for two silver angle squares, pls 98 and 99 for two quadrants, and pl. 106 for a protractor made in 1714 (fig. 4). It clearly was applied only to some rare items the Kangxi Emperor wanted to be identified with. As such, it can be taken as the Emperor’s personal seal of approval.