Lot 261
YELLOW-GROUND GREEN-ENAMELLED 'DRAGON' SAUCER
QING DYNASTY, QIANLONG MARK, 18TH-19TH CENTURY
Fine Asian & Islamic Works of Art
Auction: 3 November 2023 from 09:00 GMT
Description
清 乾隆款 黃地紫綠彩雙龍戲珠紋碟
finely incised and enamelled to the interior well with two five-clawed dragons in green and aubergine colour contesting a flaming pearl within a double circle below alternate peach and flower sprays in the cavetto, the exterior with two sinuous chi-dragons divided by lingzhi sprays, the base inscribed with a six-character Qianlong mark in aubergine colour
Dimensions
10.9cm diameter
Provenance
Provenance: Private Scottish collection, Perthshire; By family descent from Alex. W. V. Gibb. Each bowl with a collector's paper label on the base, respectively read '50 Propt. of A. W. V. Gibb' and '51 Propt. of A. W. V. Gibb'.
Alex W. V. Gibb was working for Gibb, Livingston & Co., merchants, as a clerk, in Fuzhou (Foochow) in the late 19th century. [1] Gibb, Livingston & Company Ltd. was one of the most important and best-known foreign trading firms in China in the mid-19th and the first half of the 20th century. It was established in Hong Kong in 1841 by two Scotsmen, Thomas Augustus Gibb and William Potter Livingston, who were originally employees of the British East India Company. Started on a site off Queen’s Road, it developed as local mercantile operations along the lines of shipping and insurance. In 1844, a branch in Shanghai was founded and the firm’s Chinese name, 'Jinkee' was coined. In 1864, the firm had branched out at Fuzhou, where Alex W. V. Gibb would have based, mainly for the tea trade and from which the firm’s clippers operated.
Living as an expat in China during the late Qing dynasty, Alex W. V. Gibb seems to have developed an interest in photography. The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London holds a collection of nine photographs taken by Alex W. V. Gibb featuring Chinese landscape, and expats in leisure activities, some located at Fuzhou.
[1] See The Chronicle & Directory for China, Corea, Japan, the Philippines, Cochin-China, Annam, Tonquin, Siam, Borneo, Straits Settlements, Malays States, & c. for the Year 1889. Hong Kong: The Daily Press Office, pp. 109 & 311; Also see The Desk Hong List: A General and Business Directory for Shanghai and the Northern and River Ports etc, Shanghai: North-China Herald, 1904, pg. 283.