In 2008, a Qingqianlong imperial pink Zadao butterfly bottle was sold for 53.3 million Hong Kong dollars, which surprised the entire collection market, because the financial crisis was serious this year, and the price of this bottle was only $4,000 when it was auctioned in 1971, and the transaction price in the past 37 years increased by about 1700 times, which really made people feel the madness of the collection market, and it is no wonder that the collection has the saying of "buying a house to earn ten years, collecting three generations of rich".
Qingqianlong Imperial pink pastel rolled butterfly bottle
Christie's Hong Kong sold HK$53 million in 2008
The transaction price of this butterfly bottle is shocking, but when it comes to its source and the collectors behind it, it is painful, because this exquisite butterfly bottle comes from the most lost national treasures in the Yuanmingyuan - the British "mountain residence".
Fangshanju: The relics of the Yuanmingyuan with anonymity and obscurity
Located in the southwest of England, in the 19th century, it was a villa of James Morrison, the "richest man in Britain", and since then, "FangshanJu" has been used as a display place for the Art Collection of the Morrison family, and after five generations of Morrison's inheritance, it has been donated as a museum of the British government.
Put the mountain house
In 1857, James died, and his second son, Alfred Morrison, inherited a large inheritance from his father, including the "Mountain House" estate. Alfred, the "rich second generation", was more interested in art than in business, and in 1861 he met a man named Henry Loch, who learned that he had a large number of cultural relics that he had just obtained from China, and Alfred paid 400 pounds to buy more than a thousand Chinese cultural relics.
Qingqianlong turquoise green space pastel depicts gold tangled branches lotus scroll jar put in the old collection of mountain residences
Who is this Henry Loch? Fast forward to 1860, when the British army captured Beijing, Henry Loch traveled to Beijing as the private secretary and negotiator of the British Minister Earl of Elgin, to negotiate the Beijing Treaty with Prince Gong Yixin and participate in the burning of the Yuanmingyuan. During this period, Henry Loch took the opportunity to collect a large number of Yuanmingyuan artifacts, and after returning home the following year, he transferred these treasures to Alfred Morrison.
Alfred Morrison
Alfred attached great importance to the purchase of these Chinese cultural relics, and he deliberately built a "Chinese house" in the middle of the mountain for display, and labeled and numbered each cultural relic with the label "Fonthill", which later became an important symbol for the auction company to identify the relics of the Yuanmingyuan.
The Morrison family commissioned Three auctions in Christie's in 1965, 1971 and 2004, each of which caused a huge sensation.
In 1971, Christie's auction put the inside page of the catalogue of the old collection of artifacts in the mountain house
The following yellow-earth gourd bottle, which was stored in the old collection of the mountain house, was sold for HK$250 million at sotheby's Autumn Auction in Hong Kong in 2010, breaking the record for the highest ceramics at that time and becoming the "most expensive porcelain" in the world.
Qingqianlong Light yellow yangcai icing on the cake Longevity Lian yan tu long-necked gourd bottle
Sotheby's Hong Kong sold HK$250 million in 2010
This pink-blue glazed dragon pattern jar has also been put in the collection of the mountain residence, which is very similar to the pink-blue glazed relief dragon jar of the king of last year's Hong Kong Autumn Auction, and was sold for more than 74 million yuan in the Sotheby's Autumn Auction in Hong Kong in October 2014, refreshing the auction record of qing dynasty monochrome glazed porcelain.
Qingqianlong imperial pink glaze embossed dragon pattern jar put in the old collection of mountain residence
The largest size, Qianlong orphan product
The Qingqianlong Imperial Pink Pastel Rolled Road Butterfly Bottle mentioned in the article is also very special, and it is a unique "orphan product".
The mouth of this bottle is decorated with gold color, and the mouth is decorated with floral patterns along the outer wall rain channel depicting gold strings. Turquoise green glaze is applied inside the bottle. The pink rolling road on the outer wall is the ground. Shoulder depiction of gold strings under the decoration of the convex ruyi cloud head pattern, peony, morning glory, daisy, poppy, camellia and other flowers scattered body, colorful butterflies flying between the folded branches and flowers, different postures, flocks of butterflies or flowers flying, or two opposites, or intersecting whispers, or honey flowers, full of vitality, there is a natural interest.
There are about twenty butterflies on the bottle, and butterfly experts have specifically identified the species of these butterflies and found that they are not real butterflies in nature, but are created by craftsmen with personal inspiration. The butterflies on ancient mainland paintings and porcelain paintings were only naturally realistic paintings during the Tang and Song dynasties, and the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties gradually moved away from the realistic style and developed towards pattern painting, which can be confirmed on this butterfly bottle.
This butterfly bottle is 47.7 cm tall and is made by pastel rolling process, and the finished bottle is 40% smaller than the bottle when it was a plain tire. And the bottle body pattern is pierced with a needle a needle, the hand needs to be extremely exquisite, the production process is repeated, the Forbidden City has a similar bottle, but the size is small, expert Zeng Zhifen said that this is the largest existing Qianlong imperial pastel bottle, and in the Qianlong imperial porcelain that has not seen the precedent of this type of vase, may be a unique orphan product.
The "butterfly pattern" of the late Qing Dynasty
The butterfly is known as the beauty of the worm country, whether in the poetry and painting of the ancients, or in the clothing porcelain pattern, it is the one with the highest frequency. The Qing Dynasty painter Zou Yigui said: "When the flowers are dense and dense, there are one or two flying insects, not only the empty place is not empty, but also feels extremely vivid." ”
Early 20th century blue-ground flower butterfly pattern scarf
Butterflies are the most indispensable presence in the creation of a balanced overall beauty and vivid picture, and such patterns were popular in the late Qing Dynasty. According to statistics, when the Qing Tongzhi Emperor was married, a total of 9660 pieces of porcelain were fired, of which 2070 had butterfly patterns.
Yellow pastel butterfly four-joy character plate
The most popular butterfly pattern on late Qing porcelain is not only the "hundred butterfly pattern" on it, but also the "butterfly love flower". The combination of butterflies and flowers is an enduring ornament for thousands of years, and since the Tang Dynasty, some people have united the two to form a "butterfly love flower" to express sentimentality and lingering feelings.
Qingdao light Pastel string line butterfly pattern bottle
Beijing Kuangshi. Hong Kong 2019 Spring Auction 472,000 Hong Kong dollars sold
In the late Qing Dynasty, this kind of pattern was loved by Cixi, the actual supreme ruler at that time, and on Cixi's custom-made porcelain "Daya Zhai" porcelain, we can often mix and match flowers with colorful butterflies. And the clothes and ornaments worn by Cixi also had to be added with butterfly patterns to satisfy her girlish heart.
Left: Qing Guangxu Daya Zhai purple pastel folded branches flower and bird pattern round pot, 奁, Beijing Palace Museum collection
Right: Cixi's purple butterfly pattern casual clothes
Throughout her exquisite life, in order to satisfy her selfish desires and show her power, Cixi often spent a lot of silver and two to burn imperial porcelain, so that she could not make ends meet. It was Cixi's extravagance that eventually accelerated the demise of the Qing Dynasty, was opened by the British and French allies, burned the Yuanmingyuan, and plundered 1.5 million cultural relics and flowed to all over the world.
Qing Guangxu Daya Zhai yellow pastel flower butterfly pattern flower pot Beijing Palace Museum collection
Zhuang Zhou Xiaomeng was fascinated by butterflies, and how many people did this flying butterfly from Qianlong to Cixi, from the Yuanmingyuan to Daya Zhai, from the Qing Dynasty to the Fangshan Residence?