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Lot 165
A RARE BLUE AND WHITE ‚WASHING THE ELEPHANT‘ JAR
Estimated Value:
3.000 € - 5.000 €
Result:
incl. Premium and VAT
Description:
China, Shunzi/ early Kangxi periodH. 26 cm (o.S.)
The jar of oval form, is painted with the scene of ‘Washing the Elephant’. The full frontal representation of the elephant paint ed, the beast looking on with some trepidation as a servant is about to wash him, to the sides Buddhist monks, the picture is completed by swirling clouds and rockwork, the base is unglazed.
Krauss collection, Bavaria, assembled with the Munich art trade between 1960 and 1990
The decoration on this Shunzi/early Kangxi-period jar depicts a scene known as ‘Washing the Elephant’ (saoxiang , literally ‘sweeping the elephant’). A white elephant is depicted being washed by a servant standing on top with a broom, he is watched by Buddhist monks. An initial link between the white elephant and Buddhism was revealed in connection with the birth of the Buddha. According to legend his mother, Queen Maya, was childless for many years after her marriage, but one night had a very vivid dream in which she was transported by four devas (spirits) to Lake Anotatta in the Himalayas. She was then visited by a white elephant holding a white lotus in its trunk, which walked around her three times before entering her womb through her right side. Tradition has it that the Buddha took the form of a white elephant in order to be reborn for the last time on Earth. In the Buddhist pantheon, a white elephant is also associated with the bodhisattva Samantabhadra, who is often depicted riding the elephant. The origin of this scene of washing or sweeping a white elephant is not clear. In his Record of Clouds and Mist Passing Before One’s Eyes (Yunyan guoyan lu) - a volume on art collecting in the early Yuan dynasty - Zhou Mi (c. 1232-1309) mentions paintings of Sweeping the Elephant by the Tang dynasty artists Yan Liben (c. 600-674) and his brother Yan Lide (died AD 656). The Yan Liben painting is also mentioned in the Xuanhe huapu - imperial painting catalogue of the Northern Song completed in around AD 1120, along with several others also with the theme ‘Washing the Elephant’. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a hanging scroll (accession number 1976.191) of this subject by Chen Zi (1632-1711). This painting bears an inscription suggesting that Ming dynasty scholars saw this subject as a pun for ‘sweeping away illu sions’. The interpretation of sweeping away illusions is also given in the colophon to the illustration of ‘Washing the Elephant’, designed by Ding Yunpeng (fl. 1584-1618), in Fang Yulu’s (fl. 1570-1619) Fangshi mopu (A Manual of Mr. Fang’s Ink [Cake De signs]) published around AD 1588. This interpretation comes from the fact that the word for elephant is pronounced xiang the same as the word for illusion. Showing the elephant being washed using a broom, suggests sweeping, and indeed the Chinese name for this subject is saoxiang , literally ‘sweeping the elephant’ - thus ‘sweeping away illusions’. Illustrations of this scene were popular on late Ming and early Qing dynasty porcelains. For two small brush pots decorated with versions of this scene see Julia B. Curtis, ‘Decorative Schemes for New Markets: The Origins and Use of Narrative Themes on 17th Century Chinese Porcelain’, International Ceramics Fair & Seminar, London, 1997, p.18, fig. 1, and S. Marchant & Son, Exhibition of Chongzhen-Shunzhi Transitional Porcelain From A Private American Collection, London, 2007, p. 5, no. 1. See also the brushpot which is preserved in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv.-no. 2008.80 - Small restored chip at the unglazed section at the outside of the rim, inside at the rim few small glaze chips or frits
