Ceramic Bowl Painted with Landscape Scenery in Blue Enamel Glaze

The mouth of the bowl slightly flares out. The bowl is white inside but on the exterior it is painted with spectacular landscape scenery in blue enamel glaze. Opposite to the pictorial design is a couplet in ink that may be translated as follows:
A single color of jade encircles the southern mountain,
Boundless green surrounds the deep green sea.
The couplet is preceded by a seal reading “old and archaic” (shou gu) and ends with two others, reading “the mountain is high” (shan gao) and “the river is long” (shui chang). All of them are rendered in red seal script.
In the foot ring, the Yongzheng Emperor’s reign mark is written in blue enamel glaze in a double-framed square.
Among the extant ceramic wares in painted enamel glaze with the Yongzheng reign mark, the bowl is a masterpiece. Those decorated with blue enamel glaze are very few. Besides the one in the Palace Museum collection, two others – a bowl and a plate – are in the collection of the National Palace Museum in Taiwan, and another, a teapot, is in a museum in Copenhagen, Denmark, according to a Japanese publication.
The painted enamel glaze is a glassy mixture of minerals, clay, and color agents. The production of ceramics with painted enamel glaze began in the later Kangxi reign (1662-1722) and reached a summit in the Yongzheng reign. Only the biscuit was fired in kilns at Jingdezhen, Jiangxi. After that, the half-finished ceramics were transported to the imperial palace in Beijing at the Imperial Workshops for glazing with pigments following approved designs. Lastly they were fired to become glimmering art works. In 1728, the sixth year of the Yongzheng reign, the government stopped importing pigments from abroad and started to use domestic products instead. During the post-Yongzheng era, ceramic ware with painted enamel glaze developed into a perfect embodiment of the integrated arts of painting, calligraphy, poetry, and seal carving.