Lot 141. Property from the Masuda Collection, Japan. An important blue and white appliqué-decorated 'dragon' lamp stand, Vietnam, Lê dynasty, dated to the second year of Vĩnh Trị, corresponding to 1677. Height 62.8 cm. Lot Sold 21,600 EUR (Estimate 15,000-25,000 EUR). © Sotheby's 2024

Exhibited: Masuda collection- Two thousand years of Vietnam ware history (蛛田コレクションヴェトナム Pottery Ceramicsの二千) , Machida City Museum, Tokyo, 2013, cat. no 409.

Note: The present lamp stand is representative of a rare and important group of altar wares produced during the late 16^th and 17^th centuries. Arriving in Vietnam with the Ming invasion of 1407, blue and white motifs have long been the decoration of choice for domestic and exported Vietnamese ceramics. Well attested among pieces excavated from the famous 15^th century Hội An Shipwreck, these fine wares – glowing in a rich palette of cobalt blue – were produced in large quantities for foreign trade and remain beloved in Japan as Annan-yaki (‘Annan wares’).

However, this relative calm and prosperity was not to last. Following decades of civil war and unrest, by 1533, Vietnam found itself divided in two under the rule of rival Mạc and Lê dynasties. While academic understanding of this chaotic period and its impact remains incomplete, archaeological studies of major kilns sites confirm that this instability resulted in a sharp contraction of ceramic production and a turn towards a smaller more elite domestic market. Thus, in place of earlier mass-produced table wares, potters of the late 16^th and 17^th centuries focused primarily on the production of large and unique altar wares for wealthy benefactors and Buddhist temples. Embracing classical motifs in underglaze blue but improvising in the addition of bold sprig-moulded designs of flora and fauna, these rare and monumental vessels were made in a small number of established ritual forms and were often inscribed with dates, auspicious blessings, and the names of their donors.

Compare an almost identical lamp stand – possibly a pair to the present lot – similarly inscribed with a ‘Vĩnh Trị Second Year’ reign mark, preserved in the Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, acc. no. TG-2731; a closely related pair, inscribed with reign marks corresponding to 1579, preserved in the Musée national des arts asiatiques - Guimet, Paris; another pair, dated corresponding to 1589, in the British Museum, London, illustrated in Jessica Harrison-Hall, 'Vietnamese Ceramics in the British Museum', Apollo, November 2002, 3-11, fig. 19; and another stand in the National Museum of Vietnamese History, Hanoi (acc. no. LSb 13771), dated corresponding to 1580, included in the exhibition Arts of Ancient Viet Nam: From River Plain to Open Sea, Asia Society Museum, New York, 2010.

Sotheby's. Asian Art / 5000 Years, Paris, 12 December 2024