AN EXTREMELY RARE AND MASSIVE GILT-DECORATED GRISAILLE AND IRON-RED 'DRAGON' ROULEAU VASE

Kangxi

Footnotes

清康熙 墨彩礬紅描金鱼化龍紋棒槌瓶

Provenance: Edward Varley Kayley (d.1974), and thence by descent

來源： Edward Varley Kayley (去世於1974)，並由後人保存迄今

The vase is from the collection of Edward Varley Kayley (d.1974), an English collector of Chinese ceramics and works of art with a particular passion for Chinese paintings. He served in World War II and was a Supreme Magi between 1969 and 1974 for the Rosicrucian Society of Freemasons. He built his collection from local auctions and antique sales as well as from Collet's Chinese Bookshop where he had a close relationship with Susan Chen. His personal notes include exhibition notes from the British Museum through the late 1960s, detailed notes and translations of the various paintings in his collection. He also expounded on his own observations on the significance of Chinese paintings including that 'a painting is described as a voiceless poem' and 'every feature of a landscape is held to correspond to phases of the human soul'. The present vase would likely have appealed to him due to its painterly qualities.

Harnessing the enduring power of the dragon as the ultimate artistic symbol of Imperial authority was a key project of early and mid Qing Imperial art. In this vase we find a monumental ink panoramic gilt-embellished ink painting of two Imperial five-clawed dragons transposed onto the large-scale rouleau vase.

The painting style makes an explicit connection to the heritage of Song dynasty painting borrowing from Chen Rong's (c.1200-1266) iconic Song dynasty painting Nine Dragons, dated to 1244. This work, now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, shows the nine dragons, associated with the nine sons of the Dragon King, soaring amidst clouds, mists and whirlpools. Dragons were associated with rain and water, which Chen has managed to evoke skilfully with spattered drops of ink. In Chen Rong's own inscription, he wrote:

In the world people longed for sustained rain,
Suoweng [Chen Rong] painted forth Nine Dragons

In an agricultural economy such as Imperial China's, rain was vital for a good harvest. The Emperor as the son of Heaven and mediator between Heaven and Earth understood that Heaven's blessings ensured his legitimacy to hold the mandate of Heaven. A drought or famine would be seen as a sign of Heaven's displeasure and a reflection of the Emperor's own immoral actions. Each year therefore, at the beginning of Spring, the Emperor himself would ceremonially plough a patch of earth. He needed the assistance of fickle dragons however, to provide the right amount of rain.

Dragons in time became symbols of the Emperor, Imperial authority and prosperity. The explicit use of the Cheng Rong-inspired dragons in Imperial artworks, mounted as a screen in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in China: The Three Emperors 1662-1795, London, 2005, p.215. In this work, the Chinese Imperial ruler is framed bodily by the dragon landscapes. He is placed simultaneously within the domestic palace setting and the mythical realm tracing its roots back to the Song dynasty. This shows the direct way in which Cheng Rong-inspired dragons constructed Chinese political, artistic and Imperial power through direct interaction with the Emperor.

The present vase goes a step further in its innovative treatment of the Cheng Rong-inspired dragons. First, it presented the dragons on a curving plane as part of a continuous scene and second, it upgrades the three claws on the dragons' talons to five-claws, the enduring symbol of Imperial power during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Much of the work of developing the evolving and eclectic Qing Imperial style, embodying the mandate of the Qing dynasty, the Emperor's personal taste, and the skills of the craftsmen in his service was done by Liu Yuan, a pioneering product designer and master craftsman at the mid-Kangxi Court in the 1680s, who was influenced by Chen Rong's dragons. Although he worked in a time when documentary records in the Imperial workshop rarely survive, his biography in the Qing shigao contains a remark about his ceramic designs:

At that time, the Imperial Porcelain Factory in Jingdezhen was about to produce imperial pieces. Liu presented several hundred porcelain designs, making reference to examples found in ancient and modern times, while injecting his own innovative ideas ... when completed, the output surpassed the wares of the former Ming dynasty.

His innovative designs employed elements from Chen Rong's paintings of dragons. J.Hay, in Sensuous Surfaces: The Decorative Object in Early Modern China, London, 2020, p.155, notes that 'Liu Yuan has long been known to be an important porcelain designer'...and that his designs are 'derived from the non-imperial dragon paintings of Chen Rong (active c.1235-1262)'.

Liu Yuan was a Hanjun bannerman from the Bordered Red banner domiciled in Xiangfu, Henan Province, and defied conventional career paths and labels. Orphaned young, he attended a local school but left to wander, seeking a patron and purpose in life. In 1662 when he settled in Suzhou, he pursued painting while serving as a retainer to Tong Pengnian, a member of the powerful Hanjun bannerman Tong family and the provincial administration commissioner of Jiangsu. In 1699, Tong financed an illustrated book, Pavilion of Smoke-like Clouds, with annotated portraits of twenty-four Tang chancellors designed and drawn by Liu to showcase his talents to the throne. Liu's self-promotion as one of the chancellors and his flattery of the Kangxi Emperor as the sagacious ruler succeeded, leading to his enrolment as a National University student in Beijing the following year. By 1677, he was appointed as a secretary in the Ministry of Punishment and dispatched to the customs office at Wuhu, Anhui Province. Impeached on corruption charges two years later, the Kangxi Emperor recalled him to the inner palace, where Liu's real career began. In personal service to Kangxi, Liu Yuan became instrumental in creating an early Qing Imperial style as a designer of porcelain, official seals, ink-cakes, lacquer, and wooden utensils for royal use.

Although Liu Yuan can be seen as a scholar, painter, and bureaucrat early in his career, he defied the conventional expectations associated with these roles. His patron Tong criticised his eclectic painting style as 'inconsistent' and 'lacking unified forms.' This eclecticism, however, lies at the heart of Liu Yuan's artistry. His close friend and fellow Hanjun bannerman Liu Tingji (1653-still alive 1715) described Yuan's calligraphy as a pastiche of various schools, calling it 'odd and foreboding,' and noted that Yuan cared little for poetry, a typical pursuit for Chinese scholars.

Liu Yuan also did not comfortably fit the labels of 'craftsman' or 'artisan', as his livelihood depended on vassalage rather than running a workshop, and he did not personally craft many of the objects he designed. Instead, he created drawings or wax models to ensure standardisation and correct execution of Imperial will.

His contribution as a Court designer began even while serving in the Wuhu customs house, evidenced by an exquisite body of ink-cakes he designed for his master. For the Kangxi Emperor's birthday in the third lunar month of 1678, he submitted one set as tribute, another in the fifth month of the following year, and a third offering in the sixth month. Although the exact number in each offering is unknown, these ink-cakes were meant to be ground up, submitted in identical multiples, but soon became too precious to use. The Qianlong Emperor, recognising their value, had the stash he found in the Imperial Household Department warehouse boxed in sets in 1738 and ordered duplicates made of some designs in 1770. For an examination of Liu Yuan's career, see D.Ko, The Social Life of Inkstones: Artisans and Scholars in Early Qing China, Seattle and London, pp.20-24.

Liu Yuan is best known as a pivotal designer for the newly reorganised Imperial Porcelain Manufactory, having supplied hundreds of models in the 1680s. Although these models are unsigned, scholars have identified several dragon vases as likely originating from his designs by comparing them with his known corpus of drawings and paintings. See for example, a large blue and white and copper red decorated baluster vase, with dragons amidst waves, Kangxi, in The British Museum, London, said to be based on a painting by Liu Yuan, illustrated by S.Pierson, Illustrated Catalogue of Underglaze Blue and Copper Red Decorated Porcelains in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, 2004, p.108, no.C644, colour p.45. See also a blue and white vase with a dragon, Kangxi mark, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated by J.Hay, Sensuous Surfaces: The Decorative Object in Early Modern China, London, 2020, p.155.

The dragon in the art and material culture of the Kangxi Court was a form-shifting creature, a protean symbol of Imperial power inherited from the Chinese Imperial tradition, not yet stiffened into the formulaic visage seen on Qianlong ware. In the present vase we see the front-facing dragon's horns differently rendered, one in gilt and the other firmly outlined en grisaille. This gives the impression of creature moving through three-dimensional space, with one side partially obscured through clouds. In this dynamic environment, Liu Yuan experimented with the dragon form across various mediums, including porcelain, seals, ink-cakes, and inkstones. In a formal capacity, he was commissioned to design seals for the Empress dowager (featuring a dragon finial) and Imperial consorts (without a dragon finial). While the exact seals cannot be identified today, his friend Liu Tingji personally witnessed the wax models Liu created and submitted to the Ministry of Rites. See D.Ko, The Social Life of Inkstones: Artisans and Scholars in Early Qing China, Seattle and London, pp.20-29. For Liu Yuan's designs of dragons on ink sticks and ink stones, see also Luo Yang, 'Qinggai gongting gongyi meishu sheji dashi Liu Yuan ji qi zuopin' in Shoucangjia, 2012, 9, pp.15-19.
 
Tang Ying, the Commissioner of the Imperial Porcelain Manufactory, adapted the designs of dragons from Chen Rong and Liu Yuan further onto porcelain. A tianqiuping vase with related design of dragons amidst clouds bearing Tang Ying's inscription is illustrated in Ming and Qing official Wares: A Survey of Chinese Ceramics 4, 2007, p.178, no.76, while a brush pot is illustrated in Elegant Vessels for the Lofty Pavilion: the Zande Lou Gift of Porcelain with Studio Marks, Hong Kong, 1993, no.14. The Chen Rong style of dragons influenced Imperial ceramics more widely and may also be found on underglaze blue and carved celadon vases from the Imperial collection.

Whilst the Tang Ying pieces are well-known and widely appreciated, the present vase is in some ways even more exceptional. It is earlier, larger, even more ambitious in scope. The dragons on the present vase update the four-clawed dragon of Chen Rong to a five-clawed dragon which is the ultimate symbol of Imperial authority. Unlike the majority of porcelain with this design the vase includes a pair of dragons above a fish rather than a single beast. This refers to the legend of the carps that struggle upstream and can leap over the dragon gate and turn into dragons, encapsulating preservice and diligence. The painting on the vase also provides a conduit between the distinctive colour scheme of both the original Chen Rong painting and the Tang Yin porcelain examples with a combination of en grisaille and iron-red enamels and gilt embellishments.

The present vase serves as a remarkable synthesis of Chinese artistic tradition and Imperial authority. By reimagining Chen Rong's iconic dragons within the curving expanse of the vase, this vase transcends mere decoration to become a statement of power, continuity, and innovation. The five-clawed dragons, rendered with both grace and strength, re-affirm the Emperor's connection to Heaven and the legitimacy of his reign.