Underglaze Porcelain Vase with Fox and Flocks of Geese Design

　　Xuantong Reign of the Qing Dynasty
　　Height: 52.2cm; Diameter at Mouth: 16.5cm; Diameter at Base: 19cm
　　Collected by the Hunan Cultural Relics Exchange and Appraising Center
　　This is an ornamental vase. It is beautifully shaped with a lively painting. Furthermore, it has the name of the producer and time of production all clearly marked, making it a top-notch example of early fine porcelain from the Liling Kiln Hunan Ceramics Company. With an upright mouth and a sliding neck, the belly swells gradually until it condenses again near the base. The large round base has beautiful soft lines. The vase is applied with white glaze with a bluish touch commonly seen in Liling kiln underglaze colored porcelain. The belly of this vase, in grey and black colors, depicts the scene of a fox looking at a flock of geese. A flock of geese are looking for food in the grass, but a fox is looking greedily at the geese and is about to get through the fence to catch them. The frightened geese rush to the river. Although not done in five colors, the painting has achieved the multi-color effect by the application of “different shades” of ink in traditional Chinese painting. The depiction is detailed, with vivid expressions. On the bottom of the vase is written “The first year of Xuantong Reign of Qing Dynasty, Hunan Ceramics Company” (1909).

　　The fox and the flock of geese are popular themes of Chinese and foreign fairy tales. The famous “Fairy Tales by the Grimm Brothers” tells the classic story “The Fox and the Flock of Geese”: a fox meets with a flock of very fat geese and wants to eat them. Out of desparation, the geese ask the fox to let them say their prayers before they are eaten. The fox thinks there can be nothing wrong with that and accedes to their request, but “they are still incessantly saying their prayers even today”. There are also ancient Chinese stories about geese outwitting the fox. The great Tang poet Du Fu wrote in his Small Geese in front of My Boat: “Spreading the wings I was hit by heavy rain,/ Being young and weak I am trapped in surging waves./ Dusk is falling on the city,/ The fox is hopelessly at its wit’s end.” However, the picture on the porcelain vase seems to have been painted according to a tongue twister for children: “There is a river in the east and a flock of geese in the west. The geese sing their songs happily. When a fox runs after them, they fly or run to the river.” What the poem describes matches perfectly with the picture.

　　“Hunan Ceramics Company” was established in 1906 by Xiong Xiling, a native of Western Hunan and an advocator of Westernization Movement at the end of the Qing Dynasty, to revitalize national industry after he returned from making investigations in Japan. It was one of the earliest modern enterprises in Hunan. Products of five colors under the glaze made by the company won many gold prizes at international expos and porcelain made in Liling thus became world famous, with its prosperity even exceeding that of Jingdezhen. Because of bad management, the company went bankrupt in 1930.