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20 mai 2024

An extremely rare tianbai-glazed incised 'lotus' chess jar, Ming dynasty, Yongle period

An extremely rare tianbai-glazed incised 'lotus' chess jar, Ming dynasty, Yongle period
An extremely rare tianbai-glazed incised 'lotus' chess jar, Ming dynasty, Yongle period
An extremely rare tianbai-glazed incised 'lotus' chess jar, Ming dynasty, Yongle period

Lot 31. Property from an important European collection. An extremely rare tianbai-glazed incised 'lotus' chess jar, Ming dynasty, Yongle period (1403-1424); w. 17.1 cm. Lot Sold 2,286,000 HKD (Estimate 1,000,000 - 1,500,000 HKD). © Sotheby's 2024

 

the body of compressed globular form, rising from a recessed base to a short slightly tapering neck, finely incised around the exterior with a band of scrolling Indian lotus between lingzhi and classic scroll bands, covered overall save for the footring in a glossy tianbai glaze of warm milky tone.

 

Provenance: Acquired from Edward T. Chow (1910-80) in the late 1960s.

 

 

The Noble Game 

Regina Krahl

 

Chinese chess, weiqi, or ‘surrounding chequers’, is one of the oldest board games still played today. Although often referred to by its Japanese name, go, it is of Chinese origin. It can be traced back to the Warring States period (475-221 BC) and has been popular in China ever since. On account of its endless number of possible configurations it requires highly complex strategic thinking and is therefore considered one of the most challenging board games worldwide. Although believed by some to have been invented by military strategists, chess playing belongs to the ‘Four Arts’ a Chinese scholar was expected to master, besides calligraphy, painting, and playing the qin zither; of these four disciplines, it is considered the most difficult to accomplish. Their mastery was considered desirable not only for male literati but equally for educated ladies. Depictions of the Four Arts are known with both male and female participants, as, for example, on two mid-fifteenth century blue-and-white jars, the female version from the Shanghai Museum, the male one from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, both illustrated in the exhibition catalogue Ming. Fifty Years that Changed China, The British Museum, London, 2014, figs 165 and 167.

The physical quality of the porcelain produced there was boosted to previously unknown excellence [...] The form of the present jar was developed in the Yongle reign, when artisans – or designers – conceived completely new forms with superb profiles, which display an unerring sense of proportions and a clear view to functionality.

The game of weiqi is encountered throughout China’s literature, it features in most of the Classics, China’s ancient philosophical texts, in all the great classical novels, and in endless poems. Although it was sometimes criticized as being addictive and leading to laziness and a neglect of one’s duties, overwhelmingly it is praised as a noble and educational pastime beneficial to a person’s character and intellectual fitness. It is said that proficiency in this game requires “the tactic of the soldier, the exactness of the mathematician, the imagination of the artist, the inspiration of the poet, the calm of the philosopher, and the greatest intelligence” (Elisabeth Papineau (transl. Michael Black), ‘The Game of weiqi, a Chinese Way of Seeing the World’, China Perspectives no. 33, Jan.-Feb. 2001, p. 48, quoting Zhang Yunqi, Weiqi de faxian [Discovering weiqi], Beijing, 1991, p. 2). In Chinese literature, weiqi is often used to illustrate moral values. “The metaphorical use or the mere mention of the game have a tone where purity and calm return as a leitmotiv … Taoist monks searching for immortality, hermits, sovereigns and poets play weiqi, often in close harmony with nature, and time … seems suspended” (ibid. p. 47).

In paintings, weiqi is similarly employed to embody moral concepts or philosophical ideas. These can be of a universal nature, like in depictions of the triumvirate of a Confucian scholar, a Daoist priest and a Buddhist monk united around a weiqi board, symbolizing harmony between the Three Teachings (Ni Yibin, Kan tu shuo ci [Looking at pictures to explain ceramics], Beijing, 2008, pp. 129-138). More often, weiqi is associated with Daoist values – the light and dark game pieces naturally inviting association with the duality of yin and yang – as in the often-illustrated and quoted story of a wood cutter watching two immortals playing the game, who on returning home, discovers that over a hundred years have passed since he left (Ni Yibin, op.cit., pp. 113-120). Ideas of good government are also associated with chess, as in the story of the Four Elders of Shangshan, sages who had retreated to the mountains in opposition to the government of the Qin (221-206 BC), but later returned to help stabilize the Han (206 BC-AD 220); the four are typically depicted around a chess board.

Since the connotations of weiqi were essentially positive, it is not surprising that numerous emperors are recorded to have enjoyed playing it and that some are depicted in paintings at the game board, in imaginary scenes. Two handscrolls of that nature are in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (F1911.195 and F1911.227, gifts of Charles Lang Freer): The Double Screen: Emperor Li Jing Watching his Brothers Play Weiqi, formerly attributed to the tenth-century painter Zhou Wenju, and Emperor Minghuang and Consort Yang Playing Weiqi, formerly attributed to the thirteenth century painter Qian Xuan, both depicting Tang (618-907) emperors enjoying the game. The former is now attributed to the early Ming dynasty (1368-1644), fourteenth century, the latter (fig. 1, detail) to the late Ming, seventeenth century. Taking place in a Ming-style setting, it shows emperor Xuanzong (r. 712-756) holding a white porcelain game piece jar.

 

Fig. 1 Emperor Minghuang and Consort Yang Playing Weiqi, Late Ming dynasty, 17th century, detail, Ink and color on silk, Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer, Accession No. F1911.227.

 

Game boards, game pieces, and jars to hold the pieces dating from the Han dynasty onwards have been excavated in China. While it is not always indisputably clear which jars in the past would have been used for game pieces, we know that in the Song dynasty (960-1279), chess-piece jars were barrel-shaped, imitating the form of drums, often with drum nails simulated through applied knobs of clay. A chess piece jar and cover of that type from the Yaozhou kiln site is illustrated together with chess pieces in Songdai Yaozhou yaozhi/The Yaozhou Kiln Site of the Song Period, Beijing, 1998, col. pl. XI.

The weiqi game appears to have been very popular at court during the early Ming dynasty, when the emperors enjoyed playing with their generals, their ministers, or with renowned chess masters. The Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368-1398) is recorded to have been an enthusiastic player, but at the same time issued a decree prohibiting the play for the populace at large, in the hope thus to discourage idleness. The tomb of one of his sons, Zhu Tan, Prince Huang of Lu (1370-1389) has brought to light a complete chess set of the period, consisting of a game board and a pair of jars holding black and white game pieces, the jars still retaining the Song-dynasty barrel shape (fig. 2).

 

 

Fig. 2. Weiqi chess set, Ming dynasty, excavated from the tomb of Prince Huang of Lu, Shandong Museum

 

The lush incised Buddhist, or Indian, lotus band and the bordering ruyi and classic scrolls are characteristic of the period. Under a different near-white glaze, for example the bluish-white (qingbai) glaze of a contemporary bowl in the Palace Museum, the decoration became very distinct (see Gugong Bowuyuan cang wenwu zhenpin quanji. Danse you/The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Monochrome Porcelain, Hong Kong, 1999, pl. 125). Under the tianbai glaze, incised designs exhibit the greatest subtlety. It seems that only a hint of decoration was intended, that required handling of the vessel to be fully appreciated. The tianbai glaze is synonymous with the Yongle period. It is undoubtedly the finest white glaze ever produced at Jingdezhen, but it may also have been the most demanding. It did not survive beyond this reign, and in no other reign was the beauty of a monochrome white glaze celebrated in a comparable manner.

Yongle chess jars are extremely rare altogether and seem to have been specially produced in small numbers, perhaps in individual pairs. Only one very similar jar appears to be recorded, from the J.M. Hu Family Collection, probably the pair to our vessel, with a similar lotus scroll and a tianbai glaze of similar pale greenish tint; it was sold twice in our rooms, in New York, 4th June 1985, lot 1, and in Hong Kong, 1st November 1999, lot 324, and is illustrated in Sotheby's: Thirty Years in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2003, pl. 118.

A similar jar, apparently with a different incised flower scroll, is in the Palace Museum, Taipei, published in Mingdai chunian ciqi tezhan mulu/Catalogue of a Special Exhibition of Early Ming Period Porcelain, Palace Museum, Taipei, 1982, no. 55, together with an unusual stepped cover (which may or may not belong); another jar with a different design is in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated in Lu Minghua, Shanghai Bowuguan zangpin yanjiu daxi/Studies of the Shanghai Museum Collections : A Series of Monographs. Mingdai guanyao ciqi [Ming imperial porcelain], Shanghai, 2007, no. 4-12. A jar of this form without incised decoration is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Mingdai Hongwu Yongle yuyao ciqi. Jingdezhen yuyao yizhi chutu yu Gugong Bowuyuan cang zhuanshi ciqi duibi/Imperial Porcelains from the Reigns of Hongwu and Yongle in the Ming Dynasty. A Comparison of Porcelains from the Imperial Kiln Site at Jingdezhen and the Imperial Collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, 2015, no. 123; and a jar with a monochrome ‘wintergreen’ glaze, with a low flat cover, was sold in these rooms 8th October 2009, lot 1624.

 

Sotheby's. An Important European Collection of Chinese Ceramics - Acquired from Edward T. Chow, Hong Kong, 9 April 2024.

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