IMPORTANTE ET RARE BOÎTE OCTOGONALE EN EMAUX PEINTSXVIIIe siècleA RARE PAINTED ENAMEL 'EUROPEAN SUBJECT' BOX AND COVER18th centuryOf octagonal form, the heavy copper body with deep straight sides and flat base, exquisitely painted with bright polychrome enamels of the famille rose palette, the cover featuring an elegant European lady dressed in the European style seated next to a large rock with a Buddhist lion by her side, a large blue beehive with overlapping petals and a ladle beside them, with clusters of foliage and craggy rocks, all against a dramatic darkened black sky, framed by a blue key-fret border, the sides variously decorated with shaped cartouches enclosing different flowers, reserved on meandering leafy scrolls, the inside cover, box and base enamelled white, the box interior with a central roundel enclosing two phoenix in blue enamel and a seal mark of Gai Qi (改琦) (1774-1829). 6cm (2 3/8in) high; 13.3cm (5 1/4in) wide. (2).Footnotes:十八世紀 銅胎畫琺瑯西洋仕女圖八方盒Provenance:Collection of Emile Goubert (b. 1852)Gifted to him by the President of the French Republic Paul Doumer (1857-1932)來源:Emile Goubert (1852年生) 舊藏，獲贈於法國前總統Paul Doumer (1857-1932)With the expansion of the Chinese empire under the Qianlong Emperor, foreigners including merchants, missionaries, ambassadors and delegations poured into China. Still a rare sight, visual representations of foreigners began to appear in the decorative repertory of Qing artists. Led by the Jesuit painter Giuseppe Castiglione, new techniques and decorative elements were taken on, adopted and eventually adapted to Chinese domestic taste. Painted enamels on a metal body were originally introduced by Jesuits as gifts to the imperial court where some of the earliest examples of painted enamel ware on metal and porcelain bodies were produced in workshops attached to the Zaobanchu (Imperial Palace Workshops), see Shih Ching-fei, Radiant Luminance: The Painted Enamelware of the Qing Imperial Court, Taipei, 2012, pp.35-76.The present box and cover are unusual. Heavily worked and exquisitely painted, with rich gilding around the borders, this box reflects the best quality of painted enamel wares made for the Imperial court without bearing an imperial mark. The European subject painted on the cover of the lid is rare as it features a significant amount of black enamel representing the darkened sky, a possible reference to French Limoges enamels which often featured black or dark blue backgrounds. The box is also rare because it bears the mark of Gai Qi (改琦) (1774-1828), a painter known for his depictions of women. For the rare subject, see a pair of painted enamel plaques, one of them featuring a European gentleman playing with a blue feline creature, a subject which Michael Gillinghams relates to a group of Kangxi biscuit figures of the same subject, suggesting a Kangxi date, Michael Gillingham, Chinese Painted Enamels of the 18th Century, New York, 1993, cat.no.47. Few Chinese painted enamel pieces show extensive use of black enamel such as on the cover of this box, compare an early example, a small box and cover with a floral design on a black ground, with Kangxi mark, illustrated in Shih Ching-fei, op.cit. p.38, fig.13B. For two small inro-type layered boxes with Yongzheng marks in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, see Shih Ching-fei, op.cit., p.105, figs.67 and 68. See also a small circular box in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, collection number: EA1978.1825.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
