Hello to all! I had been eyeing this antique Chinese celadon bowl for several weeks at my favorite little resale shop that received a nice donation from a bygone antique collector/dealer's estate several months ago. I was finally able to purchase it several days ago. It's a large bowl at 15" x 3". There was an old business card and a note attached to it when it came into the resale shop (pictured). Would love to hear your thoughts on it and go from there. Thank you!
Close up and side full view.
Bottom view
Close up bottom
Close up of interesting green "splatter" and old business card that came with it.
Nice Pagoda Swatow/Zhangzhow ware. Looks like 17c to me.
Thank you, Haukech, for your input! I was wondering if the old little business card had identified it correctly or not. My suspicions were that it was much older than 19th century. However, as a novice, I humbly stand corrected by the thoughts here.
Chien Lung would be written Qianlong in pinyin. That would be 18th century. However, as haukech mentioned it is Zhangzhou ware (old but wrong name 'Swatow').
That is late Ming green-red export porcelain made predominantly for export, was exported mainly to SE Asia and Japan. The most central decoration is a bit faded, but it seems to depict a split gate of Indonesia (suggested search for 'split gate Indonesia'), a common decoration on such wares. The Dutch VOC probably then sent it from Indonesia to Europe.
In the Qing dynasty the Zhangzhou kilns declined in the 17th century as production had moved to Xiamen (old: Amoy).
Attribution to Qianlong is definitely incorrect. The bottom clearly shows that this was fired on kiln grit, as was the custom at Zhangzhou kilns at the time.
Thank you, Peter, for this fantastic explanation! Yes, the central decoration is definitely a bit faded and I've now seen the split gate theme on some others. I'm learning so much! from you all!