Ming dynasty Porcelain from the Alita Davis Weaver Reed Collection sold at Christie's NY 22 march 2024

13 avril 2024

Ming dynasty Porcelain from the Alita Davis Weaver Reed Collection sold at Christie's NY 22 march 2024

Lot 941. Property from the Alita Davis Weaver Reed Collection. An exceptionally rare iron-red-decorated blue and white stem cup, Wanli six-character mark in underglaze blue within a double circle and of the period (1573-1620); 9.8 cm diam. Price realised USD 201,600 (Estimate USD 70,000 – USD 90,000) © Christie’s 2024.

Provenance: Samuel Craft Davis (1871-1940) Collection, St. Louis, Missouri.
William Bigler (1908-1979) and Alita Davis (1905-1988) Weaver Collection, Greenwich, Connecticut.
Nathaniel Pryor (1933-2018) and Alita Davis Weaver (1941-2023) Reed Collection, Jupiter Island, Florida, and thence by descent within the family.

Note: This rare stem cup is finely decorated on the exterior with nine mythical sea creatures (haishou), including a winged dragon, a turtle, a lion, a qilin and a celestial horse. The design is based on earlier Xuande prototypes on which the sea creatures are reserved in white against a wave ground. For an example of this earlier type, formerly in the Brankstone Collection, see J. Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, p. 128, no. 4:13, where the author notes that the nine mythical creatures can be found in Shan Hai Jing (Classic of the Seas and Mountains), "a book completed in the Han dynasty by Liu Xiang and his son, revised and illustrated by Guo Pu in the Eastern Jin dynasty". The theme regained popularity during the 15th century.
A Wanli mark-and-period stem cup decorated with the haishou in iron-red, but set against a ground of underglaze-blue waves which is repeated on the tall splayed foot, also with the mark written on the interior, from the Nathan L. Halpern Collection, was sold at Christie’s New York, 21 September 2004, lot 255. The Helpern stem cup had previously been in the collection of Sir Harry and Lady Garner and exhibited in the seminal 1954 Venice exhibition, Chinese Art, no. 724, as well as in the London O. C. S exhibition, The Arts of the Ming Dynasty, 1956, pl. 45, no. 191. See, also, the reverse-decorated blue-and-white Wanli stem cup of this design in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Ming Ci Ming Pin Tu Lu, Jiajing, Longqing, Wanli, The Catalogue of Famous Ming Porcelain from Japan and Taiwan, 1978, no. 82, and again by Liu Liang-yu in Ming Official Wares, Taipei, 1991, p. 281, and another reverse-decorated example sold at Christie’s New York, Marchant: Eight Treasures for the Wanli Emperor, 21 September 2023, lot 881. These reverse-decorated stem cups are decorated in the interior with a nine-character.

Lot 942. Property from the Alita Davis Weaver Reed Collection. A rare underglaze-blue-decorated yellow-glazed square dish, Jiajing six-character mark and of the period (1522-1566); 23.8 cm diam. Price realised USD 201,600 (Estimate USD 70,000 – USD 90,000) © Christie’s 2024.

Note: A similar Jiajing mark-and-period underglaze-blue-decorated yellow-glazed square dish of approximately the same size is illustrated by J. Harrison-Hall in Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, p. 253, no. 9:87. Harrison-Hall describes the decoration as “a composite plant combining the Three Friends of Winter – prunus, pine and bamboo – with two lingzhi plants”.

Lot 943. Property from the Alita Davis Weaver Reed Collection. A rare large glazed biscuit figure of Guanyin, late Ming-early Qing dynasty, 17th century; 89.5 cm high. Price realised USD 50,400 (Estimate USD 40,000 – USD 60,000) © Christie’s 2024.