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Figure

Category

Ceramics

Date

1750 - 1770

Materials

Porcelain, enamel

Measurements

190 x 80 mm

Place of origin

Jingdezhen

Order this image

Collection

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)

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