Figure
Category
Ceramics
Date
1750 - 1770
Materials
Porcelain, enamel
Measurements
190 x 80 mm
Place of origin
Jingdezhen
Order this imageCollection
Belton House, Lincolnshire
NT 433597
Summary
Figure, porcelain, depicting a laughing boy, standing, wearing a robe and holding a lotus plant in his right hand and a sheng 笙 or mouth organ in his left, made in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, China, c. 1750–70, decorated with famille rose enamels.
Full description
Possibly among the ‘8 small figures’ mentioned in the 1754 Belton inventory, as part of a group of Chinese and Japanese porcelain objects listed in room no. 39 (presumed to be the Chapel Drawing Room). Figures of healthy and happy children, usually boys, were associated with the Chinese New Year celebrations. Boys in themselves symbolised bountiful offspring and signalled the status of sons in patriarchal Confucian society. The objects the figures hold in their hands signal further auspicious meanings: in this case a lotus plant and seed pod, symbolising purity and fecundity, and a sheng 笙 or Chinese mouth organ, which is a homophone for (or sounds the same in Mandarin as) ‘professional success’ (升) and ‘to give birth’ (生) (see Bjaaland Welch 2008).
Provenance
Purchased by the National Trust with support from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, 1984.
References
Bjaaland Welch 2008: Patricia Bjaaland Welch, Chinese Art: A Guide to Motifs and Visual Imagery, Tokyo, Rutland (Vermont) and Singapore, 2008, p. 153 (children) and p. 257 (sheng)