Further images
Of round and slightly waisted form with a gently flaring rim and moulded, rounded and slightly everted short foot, decorated in shades of underglaze blue with a continuous narrative scene from the ‘Romance of the Western Chamber’ set in a terraced pavilion and depicting a male figure, Zhang Junrui climbing over a wall and below two female figures, dressed in long robes, one which is Cui Yingying, in the sky the moon and auspicious star groupings symbolizing constellations or asterisms Kung, two each consisting of three stars and one consisting of seven stars, the foot circled with blue lines, the base glazed and decorated with double concentric blue lines.
Provenance
From the collection of a Devon reverend inherited from his grandfather who was a missionary in China during the late 19th Century.
Literature
The scene is taken from the famous 13th Century classic Chinese love story ‘The Romance of the Western Chamber’. Set during the Tang dynasty it tells the story of the secret love affair between Zhang Junrui, a young impoverished scholar, and Cui Yingying. In this scene, from Book 4, Zhang is climbing over a courtyard wall to meet with Cui Yingying but she is under her mother’s watchful eye.
The Groninger Museum, Groningen, has a large famille verte bowl and matching saucer telling the story of the Western Chamber in 24 panels, one panel painted with the same scene as on our vase. The story as well as the bowl and saucer are discussed and illustrated by Christiaan J.A. Jörg, in ‘Famille Verte – Chinese Porcelain in Green Enamels’, Groninger Museum, 2011, pl. 94, pp. 93-101. Jörg writes about Book 4 as follows; “That evening, Zhang sings and plays the zither in his room while Yingying walks in the garden and listens. She is moved by his longing but flees when he comes outside to meet her. The following day he asks Hongniang to take a letter to her mistress. She returns with a letter for him, and he mistakenly thinks that Yingying has invited him to her apartment in the Western Wing. He rushes out, jumps over the wall surrounding the garden to her apartment but is harshly reprimanded by Yingying for his bad behavior.” (2011, p. 94)
