A Chinese porcelain Barber’s Bowl, late Kangxi to early Qianlong, circa 1720-40
Made for export to Europe, this Chinese porcelain barber’s bowl is decorated in the Japanese Imari palette of underglaze blue, iron-red enamel and gilt. The central well is painted with a large bouquet of trailing flowers and leaves, surrounded by smaller sprigs and sprays. The border is decorated with elaborate shaped cartouches containing alternate blue trellis designs and scroll motifs (Japanese karakusa) and stylised flower heads reserved on a red ground. The underside is painted with three large flowering sprays.
Unusually, the foot rim carries two sets of suspension holes instead of one, allowing the bowl to hang with the recess for the neck at either the top or the bottom.
Barber surgeons of the period offered grooming services and basic surgical procedures. As such, the bowl could have been used for shaving as well as bloodletting.
Condition: No damage or restoration, just typical potting, glazing and firing anomalies. Expected frits to the rims (‘mouse nibbles’ to the early Japanese collectors of Chinese porcelain). Minor wear to the gilt and iron-red decoration in places. The suspension holes are glazed and from manufacture.
Dimensions: Diameter 27 cm; Highest point on the rim 6.5 cm
Chinese Export Ceramics, Rose Kerr and Luisa E. Mengoni (V&A Publishing, 2011).