Lot 41. A Massive Blue and White Vase and Cover, Meiping, Ming Dynasty, Wanli Period  (1573-1620); 72 cm., 28 3/8 in. Estimate 3,000,000-5,000,000 HKD. Lot Sold 5,420,000 HKD (696,362 USD). Photo Sotheby's

the shouldered body tapering to a narrow base, the wide central panel painted with a continuous scene of the four scholars, Wang Xizhi, Tao Yuanming, Meng Haoran, and Zhou Dunyi, all accompanied by their attendants in a balustraded garden landscape admiring ducks, chrysanthemums, prunus, and lotus flowers respectively, the boys each following their masters carrying a wine ewer, a qin, a large leaf and a stringed instrument, all beneath mountains appearing from clouds above, between a band of lappets infilled with floral sprigs and divided by emblems around the shoulders, and a triple band of florets above a tall border of squared panels encircling the foot, the angular fitted cover encircled by a lotus scroll, below radiating petals around the bud-shaped knop painted with further radiating petals

Provenance: Sotheby’s London, 11th June 1991, lot 161.

Provenance: Nuno de Castro, A cerâmica e a porcelana Chinesas [Chinese pottery and porcelain], Porto, 1992, vol. 2, P. 86, pi. 69.
Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramicsfromthe Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-201 0, vol. 2, no. 725.

Note: A meiping of this design and massive size, without cover and with a Wanli reign mark inscribed around the shoulder, is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, from the Qing court collection, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red, Shanghai, 2000, vol. 2, pI. 164.

The scenes depicted on this vase are in the Palace Museum publication described as Si ai tu [Illustration of the four predilections]: ‘Xizhi loved ducks’ refers to caliigrapher Wang Xizhi (303-361); ‘Tao Qian loved chrysanthemums’ shows the poet Tao Yuanming (365-427); ‘Haoran loved prunus’ depicts the poet Meng Haoran (689 or 69 1-740); and ‘Maoshu loved lotus refers to philosopher Zhou Dunyi (101 7-1073).

Another vase of this design, preserved in the Ardabil Shrine and now in the National Museum of Iran, Tehran, was included in the exhibition Shah ‘Abbas. The Remaking of Iran, The British Museum, London, 2009, pI. 69, and is illustrated in Misugi Takatoshi, Chinese Porcelain Collections in the Near East: Topkapi and Ardebil, Hong Kong, 1981, vol. III, pis A.127-9; a third vase of this design with reduced neck in the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, is published in Robert Schmidt, Chinesische Keramik von der Han-Zeit bis zum XIX. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt am Main, 1924, pi. 68; and a fourth from the Songde Tang collection was included in the exhibition The Fame of Flame. Imperial Wares of the Jiajing and Wan!i Periods, University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2009-20 10, cat. no. 50.

Sotheby's. The Meiyintang Collection, Part II - An Important Selection of Chinese Porcelains. Hong Kong 5 october 2011