Canalblog
Editer l'article Suivre ce blog Administration + Créer mon blog
Publicité
Alain.R.Truong
Alain.R.Truong
Publicité
Visiteurs
Depuis la création 50 863 684
Archives
Newsletter
Alain.R.Truong
26 avril 2011

Hongwu period (1368-1398) Ceramics from The Meiyintang Collection sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 07 April 2011

An outstanding Underglaze-Red Chrysanthemum Dish

4

Lot 43. An outstanding Underglaze-Red Chrysanthemum Dish, Ming Dynasty, Hongwu period. 45.5 cm., 17 7/8 in. Estimate 25,000,000—35,000,000 HKDLot Sold 40,980,000 HKD Photo Sotheby's

the thick curved foliate walls rising to an everted rim with sixteen corresponding barbed bracket foliations, all supported on a low circular tapered foot, painted on the interior in a light copper red transmuting from strawberry to puce, with a chrysanthemum spray with four large blooms among evenly spaced foliage and buds in the centre, surrounded by formal lotus sprays on the cavetto, the blooms alternately closed and opened revealing the stamens, all encircled on the rim with a stylised border of crested waves, the exterior repeated with further lotus sprays and waves, all beneath a transparent glaze, with the unglazed base covered with an iron-red wash.

Provenance: Collection of Montague Meyer.
Christie's London, 14th April 1980, lot 381.
The Manno Art Museum, Osaka (no. 439).
Christie's Hong Kong, 28th October 2002, lot 525.

Exhibited: Chūgoku no tōji/Special Exhibition of Chinese Ceramics, Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, 1994, cat. no. 239 (illustrated).

Liteature: Selected Masterpieces of the Manno Collection, Osaka, 1988, pl. 104.
Hasebe Gakuji and Imai Atsushi, Chūgoku no tōji. Nihon shutsudo no Chūgoku tōji /Chinese Ceramics. Chinese Ceramics Excavated in Japan, Tokyo, 1995, p. 121, fig. 47.
Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 4, no. 1626.

Note: Massive dishes of this type, painted with the difficult-to-control underglaze copper-red pigment, are among the triumphs of the early Ming potters. This dish represents one of the rare successful specimen of a production period that experienced many unsatisfactory results. Only five other red-painted dishes of comparable size have ever been offered at auction.

The three design elements combined on this dish, chrysanthemums, lotus and waves, are characteristic of porcelains of the Hongwu period, and yet are rarely seen in this combination on a large dish. A very similar dish with three chrysanthemums only in the centre, in the Guangdong Provincial Museum, Guangzhou, was included in the exhibition National Treasures. Gems of China's Cultural Relics, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1997-8, cat. no. 129. A dish of this form and design but with peonies in the centre, in the Shanghai Museum, is published in Lu Minghua, Mingdai guanyao ciqi [Ming imperial porcelain], Shanghai, 2007, pl. 3-5.

Several related dishes are in the Palace Museum, Beijing, see in particular The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red, Shanghai 2000, vol. 1, pl. 21: a blue and white example of very similar design; pl. 212: a circular dish painted in red with similar chrysanthemums but a peony scroll round the well; and pls 216-9: barbed red-painted dishes with similar lotus sprays but peonies in the centre, two of them with similar waves. Related fragmentary dishes were also recovered from the waste heaps of the Ming imperial kilns at Jingdezhen, compare the exhibition catalogue Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain Excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1996, cat. no. 29, with peonies in the centre, and cat. no. 28, a circular blue and white example with similar chrysanthemums.

A fine and rare underglaze-red cup stand, Ming dynasty, Hongwu period

3

Lot 44. A fine and rare underglaze-red cup stand, Ming dynasty, Hongwu period. 19.7 cm., 7 3/4 in. Estimate 4,000,000—6,000,000 HKD. Lot Sold  4,820,000 HKD. Photo Sotheby's

thickly moulded with a domed ring in the centre surrounding a recessed well encircled by a lobed cavetto and an everted barbed rim, painted in a dark greyish copper red with a peony spray in the centre, bordered by a thin petal band on the raised ring and a finely painted chrysanthemum scroll, the cavetto with eight formal lotus sprays, all bound by a band of classic scroll on the rim and key-fret along the edge, the exterior decorated with petal panels, all beneath a pale bluish-tinged glaze, the base left unglazed. 

Provenance: Collection of Edward T. Chow.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 25th November 1980, lot 44.
Private Collection, Hong Kong.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 17th May 1988, lot 13.

Liteature: Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 2, no. 644

Note: Cup stands of this flat dish shape with a raised ring in the centre were developed in the Yuan dynasty and replaced earlier, taller and often ring-shaped supports. In the Hongwu period the shape, crisply formed in twin moulds, became more distinct and is known both from copper-red and cobalt-blue painted examples. It is not known, however, what kind of cups would have been used together with these stands. Although one fragmentary cup has been published together with a stand of this form, both painted in underglaze blue, in the exhibition catalogue Jingdezhen chutu Ming chu guanyao ciqi/Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain Excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1996, cat. nos 17 and 18, the small size of that piece seems ill proportioned compared to the solidly made stands, and no such cups are otherwise extant in any case. The porcelain cup stand may rather have been used together with drinking vessels of precious metal that might not have survived.

A copper-red decorated cup stand with a similar, but more densely spaced design, from the collection of Sir Percival and Lady David, illustrated in J.M. Addis, 'A Group of Underglaze Red', Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, vol. 31, 1957-9, pl. 2a, was sold in our London rooms, 5th December 1961, lot 33, and again 10th November 1964, lot 72; another from the Avery Brundage Collection in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is illustrated in He Li, Chinese Ceramics. A New Standard Guide, London, 1996, pl. 393; and a closely related piece with a camellia instead of the peony spray in the centre, from the Richard Bryant Hobart and John D. Rockefeller 3rd collections and now in the Asia Society, New York, is published in Denise Patry Leidy, Treasures of Asian Art. The Asia Society's Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, New York, 1994, pl. 164, and was sold in our New York rooms, 23rd May 1969, lot 103. A blue and white counterpart, also from the Edward T. Chow collection is illustrated in Helen D. Ling and E.T. Chow, Complete Collection of Ming Dynasty Kingtehchen Porcelain from the Hall of Disciplined Learning, Hong Kong, 1950, vol. I, pl. 5.

A fine large white anhua 'Phoenix' Bowl

 Lot 44. A fine large white anhua 'Phoenix' Bowl, Ming Dynasty, Hongwu period. 21.5 cm., 8 1/2 in. Estimate 2,000,000—3,000,000 HKDLot Sold 2,420,000 HKD. Photo Sotheby's

robustly potted with rounded sides rising to a slightly everted rim, all supported on a tapered foot, finely incised on the interior with a lingzhi-shaped cloud in the centre, surrounded by two anhua phoenixes with outstretched wings and long curling tails, the exterior left undecorated, all beneath a fine smooth creamy glaze with a slight tinge of yellow.

Provenance: : Collection of Captain Vivian Bulkeley-Johnson (died 1968).
The Mount Trust Collection.
Christie's London, 19th April 1983, lot 21.

Exhibited: The Mount Trust Collection of Chinese Art, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1970, cat. no. 88.

Literature: Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 2, no. 648.

Note: Anhua, 'hidden decoration', is a complicated and not yet fully understood manner of decoration that appears to involve some moulding into a fine layer of slip. It was practised almost exclusively at the beginning of the Ming dynasty, from the Hongwu to the Xuande period, and only at Jingdezhen. The term is often misinterpreted and used to designate any difficult-to-decipher incised design, but pieces such as the present bowl, which is decorated both with incising and with anhua, clearly document the difference between the two techniques.

Other white bowls of this large, impressive type are illustrated in John Ayers, The Baur Collection Geneva. Chinese Ceramics, Geneva, 1968-74, vol. II, no. A 142, and in Fujioka Ryoichi and Hasebe Gakuji, Sekai tōji zenshū/Ceramic Art of the World, vol. 14, Tokyo, 1976, pl. 225.

Sotheby's. The Meiyintang Collection - An Important Selection of Imperial Chinese Porcelains, Hong Kong, 07 April 2011

Publicité
Publicité
Commentaires
Publicité