Antique Stoneware Garden Stool, Coin/Taotie Designs, China (16777A-VCEM) $1275

Description

Most antique Chinese outdoor garden stools were made in a drum or barrel shape using common ceramic designs like decorative fretwork, low relief decoration, simple pierced schemes, a variety of underglaze painted images, calligraphy and more. The upper border of the body of this beautiful stoneware garden stool is covered with four color bands that beginning with a wide apple green band (the same color on its top) followed by a thin double pierced white one, a thin pierced brown one with circular reliefs around the piercings and last wider band of cut cobalt blue vertical lines in a relief pattern. Coblat blue has been a high regarded pigment due to the high costs of producing it.  More than half the body is covered below in a mustard yellow glaze that has four auspicious double coin images outlined in cobalt blue with green, yellow and white pierced florals in relief as well as two Tao tieh masks in relief with pierced circular rings and a hole in their mouth perfectly aligned to go through the stool’s interior to the hole on the opposite side. A double intertwined coin design is one of the Chinese Eight Treasures (babao) and a popular and auspicious ornament. Coins are symbols of wealth, and since the the word for “eight” ba  rhymes with fa meaning “to expand” this word association is a wish “to expand in wealth.” The tao tieh, one of China’s mythical animals is said to be an “ogre”  and a stark warning to avoid gluttony, greed and desire. Below this mustard glaze is a thin cobalt blue band followed by a white one and finished with a thick cobalt blue ban that echo the color scheme above. There are many reproductions and contemporary garden stools but antiques like this in excellent condition have glaze drips, wear consistent with age and use and minimally faded colors but are often heavier and well-built with more ornate design details.

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