Description
This bowl has a wide mouth, deep curving walls, and a short ring foot. The interior surface is plain and unadorned. One side of the exterior surface is adorned with a scene of green mountains and flowing water, depicting the fields on both banks of a river. Two people converse among the bamboo fences and hay-thatched mud cottages, while a fisherman on a boat plies his way along the river, as another two figures work in the fields. The scene shows a quiet, bountiful summer's day lulled by gentle breezes. The other side is decorated with two lines of poetry written in ink, stating, "The villages are abundant with green trees, and the calls of the black-naped orioles can be heard throughout the days." These two lines were derived from the third and fourth lines of the five-character octonary, "Journey in the Countryside on a Summer Night," by the Song Dynasty poet Dai Bing. A red stamp with the two characters, "shou ru (longevity akin to)," appears before the two lines of poetry, and two red stamps respectively stating, "shan gao (high mountains)" and "shui chang (long rivers)," appear after the lines of poetry. The underside of the bowl is inscribed with four blue characters in two columns, stating, "Yong Zheng Nian Zhi (Made in the Yongzheng Reign." The inscription is surrounded by a double-square frame.