Bowl, late 18th/early 19th century

Not on View

Medium

porcelain with apple-green glaze

Dimensions

overall: 6.5 x 9.6 cm (2 9/16 x 3 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Widener Collection

Accession Number

1942.9.546

Artists / Makers

Chinese Qing Dynasty (artist)

Image Use

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Provenance

The Ta-kee Collection;[1] sold to Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York; sold 1913 to Peter A. B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; inheritance from Estate of Peter A. B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; gift 1942 to NGA.

[1] Unfortunately, Clarke provided no descriptive information about Ta-kee as he had about Yan Li San (see the provenance for NGA 1942.9.485 and 1942.9.486), so it is difficult to speculate about his identity; the source for this information is the Widener collection records kept by Edith Standen (now in the NGA curatorial files).

Associated Names

Clarke, Thomas Benedict
Ta-Kee Collection
Widener, Joseph E.
Widener, Peter Arrell Brown

Technical Summary

The mouth rim and the interior display a greenish white glaze with a wide dark crackle, while the base is covered with a gray-white glaze with a medium crackle. A serious crack, along which some of the green overglaze enamel has chipped away, runs from the lip to mid-body along one of the crackle lines. There are a few small pinholes at the shoulder. The exterior edge of the unglazed foot is brown on the exterior but reveals only a few dark spots of what might have been a wash on the foot-ring itself. The green enamel at the foot flows over the greenish white underglaze at some points; it is better controlled at the mouth rim.

Bibliography

1942: Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 22.

1998: Bower, Virginia, Josephine Hadley Knapp, Stephen Little, and Robert Wilson Torchia. Decorative Arts, Part II: Far Eastern Ceramics and Paintings; Persian and Indian Rugs and Carpets. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1998: 126-127, color repro.