Antique Chinese Porcelain Bencharong Bowl for the Thai Market, 18th century.
Located in Point Richmond, CA
Antique Chinese Porcelain Bowl for the Thai Market, 18th century.
Bencharong enamel decoration with Buddhist imagery on a black background. This classic porcelain bowl form having a raised narrow foot rim and slightly everted mouth rim is richly decorated in bright polychrome enamels much favored by the nobility in eighteenth century Siam. This colorful style became known as “bencharong”, a term that derives from two Sanskrit words – panch (‘five’) and rong (‘colour’) and which relates to the number of colours used to decorate such porcelain. This bowl is decorated with typically Thai motifs. The sides are decorated with four Thepanom (Buddhist celestial beings) each wearing a broad necklace of petals and seated on a lotus within triangular cartouches that have a coral-red ground. Four Norasingh (mythical forest-dwelling semi-deity with a human head, torso, and arms but with the hind-quarters of a lion and the tail and hoofs of a deer) against black back grounds filled with flaming pink kranok motifs. This design is framed by two floral bands top and bottom and another double band on the interior mouth rim. The interior glazed in a soft turquoise green and remnants of a floral pattern roundel on center. Sets of porcelain such as this example were commissioned from the Jingdezhen kilns in China and exported to Thailand.
6-7/8 in. in diameter x 3-5/8 high (17.5 x 9cm)
16.7 oz. (475g.)
Ayutthaya Period, 18th century.
Provenance:
German Private Collection.
For similar examples see:
William Warren & Luca Invernizzi Tettoni, Arts and Crafts of Thailand, Chronicle Books, San Francisco 1994, p.33.
Bonhams New York, Indian, Himalayan & Southeast Asian Art, 17 Sep. 2014, lot 180 With the following notes: Bencharong porcelains...
Category
Antique 18th Century Chinese Qing Ceramics