Pillow

[kardinalisimo]

Any suggestions on the age of this pillow?
Thanks

[kardinalisimo]

Peter, Stan,.. Any thoughts?

[Stan]

Hi Kardinalisimo, the writing looks to crisp to me, not fading at all, I would say 3rd quarter of the 20th century or later.

[kardinalisimo]

Thanks Stan. I guess Peter agrees with you if not replying:)
I?m a bit surprised that with this fine enameling ( at least I think so), they did not ?fake? a reign mark.

[peterp]

The seal is the mark; it says 'Qianlong'.

[kardinalisimo]

I believe the seal means that the poems were created by emperor Qianlong but there is no actual reign mark.

[peterp]

There is no reign mark, but the Qianlong emperor would not have used such a seal either. There would have been no writing either. The shape of the pillow is also off the normal; it is not ergonomic. Imaging resting your head on something like this. In my view this is a new creation all over, quite unlike some of the ancient types. And it shows no usage or age signs.

[kardinalisimo]

But generally speaking, I?m not sure why the emperor would not have used such seals

[admin - note:  all links removed. Please read forum rules about "Links to external sites"]
[admin:  all links were not showing "pillows"; they may have been dynamic links resulting from site searching that can only be diplayed via scripts.]


Believe it or not, the pot from the last link was first auctioned few years ago at an estate sale in Norfolk, VA.
I went there shortly before the auction started and did not have enough time to research. I bid on the pot, if I remember correctly, till $2000 or so and gave up because I was not sure if the pot was authentic. If I remember correctly, the winner bought if for a little over that.
And I know for sure that the buyer was not sure either.
I almost got a heart attack when I saw how much it sold at Sotheby?s.

[kardinalisimo]

This example does not look very comfortable either:
m.vam.ac.uk/item/O113051/pillow-pillow-unknown/

[kardinalisimo]

According to this article these ?pillows? were also used for storage:
www.throughouthistory.com/?p=4018

[peterp]

You can research why the Qianlong emperor would not have used one like this. Many of his seals are known. His seals are mostly known, but the main reason is because such seals started to be used combined with black writing in the later 19th and 20th centuries, when artisans put their seals on items they made.

There were many porcelain pillow types made over the centuries. Usually they show some rounded edges, have less length and are wider. It would be difficult to sleep on something with edges like this. They might have put some blanket or other item on top to soften the edges. The main purpose of porcelain pillows were two. They would have been cool in summer. Some may have been shaped in a way that the hairdo needed not be redone every morning, probably.  That was likely also the reason for some high Japanese pillows.

Cooling is probably the main purpose. And as you found, there are some of other materials. FYI, every summer we still can buy some such shapes, but made of rattan, etc. as summer pillows.

You can put something inside, with some, but not with others. That does not make their main use for storage. What would they have put inside on a bed?
Did you compare the size of that at the V&A site with yours?

[kardinalisimo]

Not sure what was wrong with the external links, I thought they were pointing to individual items.
So, none of those examples with poems in black and red seals are from Qianlong period? If so, I can?t believe how many museums and high end auction houses got it wrong.
The way I see the things, those seals just show that the poems were composed by the emperor and not that they are personal seals that belonged to Qianlong. I?m not familiar with the history and usage of Imperial seals but I would think that only the official who the seal belonged to could physically use it. Was it allowed artists to copy emperor seals on their artworks?