A Chinese blue and white 'sixteen boys‘ bowl
Qing dynasty, Daoguang mark and period
Finely...

A Chinese blue and white 'sixteen boys‘ bowl

Qing dynasty, Daoguang mark and period

Finely painted with sixteen boys at play in a fenced garden, the boys in two distinct groups, the young toddlers dressed in traditional open-backed apron, dudou (肚兜) and seated around a 'winding stream' table, the older group wearing jackets and playing musical instruments, six-character seal mark to base, 15.5cm diameter. (Import VAT Charged on the Hammer Price)

Provenance: The Weishaupt Collection, Berlin (label).

Exhibited and illustrated: Exhibited at the Museum für Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt, 1987, and illustrated by Gunhild Avitabile in From the Dragon's Treasure, Weishaupt Collection, London, 1987, No.98.

Feng- Chun Ma, Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, May 2017, No.24.

Feng-Chun Ma, A Thousand Years of a Hundred Boys in Chinese Art, CA Book Publishing, Hong Kong, 2024, p. 144-145, no. 44.

清道光 青花十六子嬰戲圖碗，青花篆書「大清道光年製」款

來源：Weishaupt收藏，柏林（標籤）。

展覽與出版：法蘭克福應用藝術博物館于1987年展出此器，並著錄于Gunhild Avitabile，From the Dragon's Treasure, Weishaupt Collection，1987年，倫敦，編號98。

Feng- Chun Ma，Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art，2017年5月，編號24。

Feng-Chun Ma，A Thousand Years of a Hundred Boys in Chinese Art，CA Book Publishing，香港，2024年，144-145頁，44號。

The theme of 'boys at play' first appeared on underglaze-painted ceramics produced by the Changsha kilns during the Tang dynasty. It became especially popular as a decorative motif on porcelain in the Ming dynasty, with 'sixteen boys' and 'one hundred boys' being the most representative. Symbolising the wish for an abundant and prosperous lineage, this motif became a classic design of successive imperial kilns. The present type of blue and white porcelain bowl featuring sixteen boys became a standardized imperial ware from the Qianlong reign onward, and continued to be produced through to the end of the Qing dynasty.

An entry dated 8th days of the 15th year of the Daoguang reign (1835) in the Qing archival record Gongdang Jindan (Tribute List) states: “Respectfully presented by De Shun... (place to the eastern building of the Shende Tang), twenty large bowls with the 'sixteen boys' motif, and twenty medium bowls with the 'sixteen boys' motif...”. This lot may correspond to one of the medium bowls in this records.

cf. See a similar bowl in the collection of the Shanghai Museum, accession number CI00016395, and another in the collection of the Guangdong Museum, accession number 148920.