Lot 51. A blue-glazed vase, meiping, Early Ming Dynasty, 15th century; 35.2cm high. Sold for US$7,680 (Estimate US$ 8,000-12,000) © Bonhams 2001-2024

Elegantly proportioned and heavily potted, the vase rising from a slightly splayed foot to a broad shoulder, the short tapering neck finished with rolled rim, covered with a layer of deep sapphire-blue glaze thinning to the rim and neck and pooling to darker tones near the foot, the slightly recessed biscuit base unglazed and burnt orange-brown in areas.

Note: This vase belongs to a small group of early Ming dynasty meiping covered in monochrome-blue glaze, very possibly expensive to produce due to the large amounts of high-quality cobalt required, which had to be imported from Iran and refined for use on porcelain. To achieve a rich color, the vessel would have been dipped, possibly more than once, into the cobalt-oxide glaze before firing.

For a very similar blue-glazed meiping attributed to the early 15th century in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc. no. 25.13), see Suzanne Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1975, p. 152, no. 146.

A meiping of nearly identical silhouette to the present example, but with a darker glaze, sold at Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 28 November 2019, lot 441. A very similar blue-glazed meiping  vase previously at Bluett, London, and in the collection of the Gulbenkian Museum, Durham (coll. no. L5), subsequently sold at Christie's, New York, 21 September 2000, lot 296, and again in our San Francisco room, 24 June 2013, lot 1193. A third vase of this type sold at Sotheby's, New York, 13 September 2017, lot 56.

Bonhams. Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, New York, 16 September 2024