Qianjiang covered bowl

[Adriano]

I just got this small covered bowl, 12 cm tall and 9 cm dia.
The printed Tongzhi mark points to a late Guangxu period, so does the decoration.
Not sure if there is a date: could be xin hai, 1911?

Thank you for help.

[Adriano]

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[peterp]

Hi Adriano,
What you marked should be 祥興, the second character being simplified to 兴, which is often seen in handwriting.
This seems to be either the personal name of the artisan or the workshop. The latter is more likely, there are lots of ceramics businesses all over China with this trading name.
The year appears to be 甲寅 (4th column from left), which would be 1854 or 1914.

As you noted, a Tongzhi mark may be found in the Guangxu reign, but this type of decoration made as late as 1914 is unusual. It  would have been common in the late 19th to the early 20th century, but not anymore in the republic period, I would think. On the other hand, there are real age signs on this item.
Personally I suspect it might be from the late late Guangxu reign and the cyclical date was intended to point to the same period as the mark, Tongzhi, the reign before Guangxu. As you know, using marks from earlier times is common on Chinese porcelain. The same is occasionally the case with predating later porcelain. Might be the case here.

[Adriano]

Hi Peter,
Thank you for the your considerations.
In this case the date is completely out of my possibilities of find it out.
 

[peterp]

The writing on Qianjiang porcelain is often not very neat as on other porcelain items. Actually, the handwriting is sometimes so bad that even native Chinese speakers have difficulties to read some of the characters.