A MASSIVE AND EXCEPTIONALLY RARE FAMILLE ROSE 'PHOENIX AND TOBACCO-LEAF' FISH BOWL Qianlong period, circa 1770 Boldy and densely enameled in a variety of bright colors around the deep exterior with a continuous scene depicting a variant of the 'tobacco-leaf' pattern with large blue and yellow serrated leaves and large pinkish-red flowerheads dividing exotic standing crested mythical phoenix, beneath a narrow iron-red and white floral band, the main design depicted large enough to almost fill the space between the base and the shoulder the interior base and sides enameled with a shoal of iron-red carp swimming amongst green water plants, the exterior sides applied with two 'simulated bronze' lion-mask gilt-biscuit handles. 23in (59cm) diam Footnotes: 乾隆時期 約1770年 珍稀粉彩《鳳凰烟草》紋大魚缸 Published: Cohen & Cohen, The Golden Gate Collection, Antwerp, 2018, pp. 184-185, no. 137 出版： 倫敦Cohen & Cohen古董行，《The Golden Gate Collection》，安特衛普，2018年，頁185-185，圖版編號137 Swimming fish are objects of great interest to Chinese connoisseurs of fish stock, especially the large plump carp called koi, China's most ornamental and expensive fish type. Koi (or more specifically nishikigoi), are colored varieties of the Amur carp that are kept for decorative purposes in outdoor koi ponds or water gardens. Koi is an informal name for the colored variants of C. rubrofuscus. Kept therefore for ornamental not culinary purposes, 'koi carps' key feature is that they are almost invariably asymmetrically colored on their bodies with patches of iron-red, gray and black areas, and the accidental patterns which these natural colorations can create are avidly studied by buyers. Normally carp are kept in ponds as they grow quite large, but there is a long tradition in China of keeping and displaying ornamental fish in extremely large bowls, a tradition apparently not observed elsewhere because no other ceramic culture has actually generated (or perhaps even been able to fire, until the 19th century) exceptionally large porcelain bowls painted around the interion with exotic fish swimming among long trailing green waterweed. The present below therefore is unusual because although it follows in a Chinese tradition of potting such massive ornamental bowls for domestic Chinese indoor usage (if left outside, a cold Chinese winter would freeze the water and burst the bowls), the style of decoration very much suggests an Export market. It is possible that fishbowls are one of the few shapes popular with Western buyers that were in fact made for Chinese domestic use, and these splendid bowls were simply bought by supercargoes (probably as 'private trade' not 'Company cargo') because they believed they would sell well in Europe. However, it is odd that similar fishbowls never seen to turn up in mainland Chinese collections; and when they carry designs on the outside which are exclusively Export-taste in origin, like this one with a tobacco-leaf designs, these are clearly being made with China Trade supercargoes as the purchasers. References: for one bowl from a pair in the Swedish Royal collection, see Wirgin, 1998, p. 107; Cohen & Cohen, 1999, p. 23, for a single jardiniere; Debomy, 2013, 133, illustrates a fish bowl with this design which he classifies as A9.2 pattern; and Cohen & Cohen, 2014-B, no. 28, a pair of jardinieres in this pattern.