A rare polychrome crab tureen and cover


Qianlong/JiaqingDelicately and realistically modelled crouching with four legs on each side of the body, the cover modeled as the carapace with protuberant and freely-moving eyes and surmounted by a frog-shaped knop, all supported and fixed on a lotus-leaf stand incised with veins and with rolled edges. 29.2cm (11 1/2in) wide. (2).
|清乾隆/嘉慶 粉彩螃蟹形有蓋湯盆，連盤Provenance: Sotheby's New York, lot 187 (label)A distinguished European private collection來源：紐約苏富比，拍品编号187（標簽）歐洲顯貴私人收藏Crab tureens are extremely rare and there only appear to be five published examples known. The present lot is exceptional in being the most naturalistically modelled. A related grey-enamelled tureen with rolling-leaf base, Qianlong, is in the National Museum, Stockholm, illustrated by J.Wirgin, Fran Kina till Europa, Stockholm, 1998, p.167, no.179.Other related examples of red crab tureens are less naturalistic than the present lot. One crab tureen and cover, Qianlong, is in the Peabody Essex Museum, illustrated by W.R.Sargent, Treasures of Chinese Export Ceramics from the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA, 2012, no. 256. The second is in the RA collection, previously in the Robert and Melanie Gill collection, illustrated by Maria Antónia Pinto de Matos, The RA collection of Chinese Ceramics: A Collector's Vision, vol.II, London, 2011, no.252. The third example was previously in the Russel B.Aitken Collection at Camp Soleil, and was later sold at Christie's New York, January 20-21, 2004, lot 327. A fourth crab tureen and cover, Qianlong, was formerly in the G.Duff Collection, Lisbon, illustrated by A.du Boulay, Christie's Pictorial History of Chinese Ceramics, Oxford, 1984, p.303, fig.3, and was later sold at Sotheby's New York, 18 January 2019, lot 324.