CHINE, DYNASTIE QING, XVIIIEME-XIXEME SIECLE

Gourds and melons have long been a popular subject with Chinese painters and craftsmen working in the Chinese decorative arts. Terese Tse Bartholomew has noted in Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, 2006, p. 62, no. 3.3.4., the fact that the plant has a long stem, along which grow differently sized fruits, all containing many seeds, makes it an ideal symbol for ceaseless generations of descendants. The long thin vine (mandai) provided a rebus for wandai, 'ten thousand generations'.