笑口常开Painted Basin: Always Smiling

A painted object. The vessel is a white plastic basin; the picture is painted on its floor, with the molded rings of its sides just visible around it. On it grows a branch of pomegranate, the old wood in dark and pale ink rising from the lower right, the fine leaves in ink and blue-green. Pomegranates hang all along it, some whole and some split, the crimson seeds outlined in white so that each one shows. The title is written in a column at the left, with two seals.

A ripe pomegranate splits open by itself, showing its seeds like a smile, hence “Always Smiling”; its many seeds also wish for many children.

此为彩绘器物。器为白色塑料盆，画面绘于盆底，盆壁圈纹环绕，隐约可见。盆底绘石榴一枝，老干以浓淡墨写出，自右下斜伸而上，细叶纷披，墨色与青绿相间；石榴累累，或圆或裂，裂口处籽粒殷红，以白粉勾勒，粒粒分明。左侧竖题“笑口常开”，钤印两方。

石榴熟而自裂，露籽如笑，故称“笑口常开”，又以多子寓多子多福。日用之器，经笔墨点染，平添喜气。