Kangxi c.1662 – 1674, Blue and White Porcelain Dish Painted in the ‘Master of the Rocks’ Style.

A late Transitional porcelain dish, early Kangxi period c.1662-1674. The thickly potted blue and white dish is painted in the ‘Master of the Rocks’ style with an extensive landscape.

SOLD

Condition
Several glaze frits to the rim, the glaze is rather thick so the glaze chips show up more than normal.
Size
Diameter : 28 cm (11 inches)
Provenance
N/A
Stock number
24608
References
For a Kangxi Master of the Rocks plate from this group dated to c.1662-1674 see : Seventeenth Century Chinese Porcelain From The Butler Family Collection (Sir Michael Butler, Margaret Medley, Stephen Little, Art Services International,1990) page 145 plate 94. For a Kangxi 'Master of the Rocks' from this group from the collection of W.W. Winkworth. Carew-Shaw (1901-1998) see our 'Search' number 18472. A further Kangxi porcelain dish of this type but smaller number 17740.

Photos

Information

The Master of the Rocks Style :
The phrase Master of the Rocks is unfamiliar to many Chinese, it is another invented category used by western scholars and collectors to pigeon-hole groups of Chinese ceramics, rather like Kraakware or Celadon. However unlike either of these Master of the Rocks first coined by Gerald Reitlinger, is a clear, distinct group. This style lasted from about 1645 to 1690. The highly distinctive painting style consists of landscapes with massive powerful mountains in a linier technique. The style is, for want of a better word, ‘painterly’ and often includes distant mountains painted with a very wet brush that contrast with the linier mountains in the mid ground. The style usually employs a technique of blobby dots, either in the landscape or as a border. These dots are painted with a wet brush and have no outline. These designs were certainly inspired by late Ming scroll painters like Wang Jinazhng (active c.1628 – 1644). The same use of brush strokes in contour like parallels lines can be seen. Mountains with jagged peaks are piled up creating a dramatic structure. But where as many of the scroll painters are known, the ceramics artists are anonymous.