A RARE AND FINELY PAINTED SEPIA 'FOX AND FOWL' BOWL Qianlong period, circa 1790 Depicting a continuous lake landscape scene, with two quite contrasting fox encounters, one scene with a fox attacking a rooster by biting its neck and stepping on its wing, whilst his mate and chicks scurry for cover, the other scene with a fox with open-mouthed raised head howling in agony with its left foreleg caught in a circular metal foothold trap with an alarmed swan nearby squawking and with wings outstretched defending two startled smaller swans, perhaps cygnets, who rush into the lake alongside, the interior center painted with a vignette of two phoenix (fenghuang), one standing on rockwork, the other seated and with a leafless tree and foliage behind, bands of simple cells and ruyi-lappets below the lightly gilt rim, a key-pattern border surrounding the foot; all executed in a monochromatic rouge-de-fer, iron-red, enamel. 11 1/2in (29cm) diam Footnotes: 乾隆時期 約1790年 罕見棕彩描紅《狐狸與雉鷄》圖紋碗 Published Cohen & Cohen, Hit & Myth, Antwerp, 2014-B, p. 100, no. 58 Cohen & Cohen, Tyger Tyger!, Antwerp, 2016, p. 153 (Addendum: Research Updates) 出版： 倫敦Cohen & Cohen古董行，《Hit & Myth》，安特衛普，2014年-B，頁100，圖版編號58 倫敦Cohen & Cohen古董行，《Tyger Tyger!》，安特衛普，2016年，頁153 (後記：研究新論) The two scenes are from prints by Gilles Demarteau (1722-76) after a series of animal drawings by Charles Dagomer (circa 1700 to circa 1768). These scenes are numbers 22 and 23 in the series and are signed Dagomer. (figs. 1 & 2) Dagomer was an animal painter in Paris and a member of the Académie de Saint-Luc working in the 1760s. The prints are in a technique called 'sanguine,' imitating red chalk drawing much used by Demarteau. This explains the unusual use of iron-red monochrome on the bowl. Interestingly, about twenty-three years ago, a pair of large oils on canvas, painted in grisaille technique with white highlights, appeared at auction in Budapest and were mis-described as 'after Jean-Baptist Oudry'. Oudry was perhaps the most famed painter of large-scale naturalistic pictures of animals and game. However, the composition was it seems, clearly based on paintings by Charles Dagomer, as evidenced by the print source listed above. A large export punchbowl (circa 1790) with these two scenes in panels but with simpler vegetation, was sold at Christies New York in 2005, though that bowl had the so-called 'Collapsed Hussar' scene to the interior. References: Locquin 1912, Catalogue Raisonné de Jean Baptiste Oudry (Paris), no. 367, an image of swans with young surprised by foxes sold in 1875, no. 779, a pastel study of a fox in a trap, sold 1773, and no. 332 a foxes catching a rooster, with hen and chicks nearby painted for M de Trudaine at the Château de Montigny, similar to one in the Wallace Collection (CR 357), and another sold in 1777. For the Demarteau print source in the Rijksmuseum, see the Rijksmuseum Collection, nos. RP-P-176 & 177 (figs 1 & 2).