Lot 38. An extremely rare blue and white 'peony' ewer, Ming Dynasty, Yongle period (1403-1424); 27.8 cm., 10 7/8 in. Estimate 3,000,000-5,000,000 HKD. Lot sold 8,420,000 HKD. Photo Sotheby's

elegantly potted with a pear-shaped body rising to a tapered neck and a flared rim, the slender curved spout attached to the neck by a cloud-shaped strut, set opposite an arched strap handle with a small eyelet loop above a ruyi-shaped terminal attached to the body and applied with three bosses imitating metal studs, vibrantly painted in varying intensities of cobalt on either side with a peony in full bloom with attendant buds and folige, the neck collared by a band of lingzhi scrolls, all between upright lappets at the neck and skirting the foot, the spout painted with five chrysanthemum sprays and ruyi around its base, and the handle decorated with lotus scroll

PROVENANCE: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 20th May 1980, lot 46.
Collection of T.T. Tsui, Jingguantang Collection, Hong Kong.
Christie's Hong Kong, 5th November 1997, lot 892.

LITTERATURE: Regina Krahl, 'The T.T. Tsui Collection of Chinese Ceramics', Orientations, December 1989, p. 39, fig. 16.
Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 4, no. 1636.

NOTE: Ewers of this form are classic porcelains of the Yongle period, when they were produced with many different flower or fruit designs. The present design with its lush peony blooms is, however, very rare. Only two other ewers of this pattern appear to be recorded, both preserved incomplete: one ewer in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, with the bridge to the spout and loop on the handle missing, is illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, ed. John Ayers, London, 1986, vol. II, no. 619; the other ewer missing part of its spout, from the Ardabil Shrine and now in the National Museum of Iran, Tehran, is published in T. Misugi, Chinese Porcelain Collections in the Near East: Topkapi and Ardebil, Hong Kong, 1981, vol. III, pl. A80. 

Blue-and-white ewers of this form, painted with three different designs, recovered from the Yongle stratum of the Ming imperial kiln sites were included in the exhibition Jingdezhen chutu Ming Xuande guanyao ciqi / Xuande Imperial Porcelain Excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1998, cat. nos. 57-9.

A yuhuchun bottle of this pear shape, lacking handle, strut and spout, decorated with a very similar large peony scroll but different accompanying borders, is in the National Museum of China, Beijing, illustrated in Zhongguo Guojia Bowuguan guancang wenwu yanjiu congshu / Studies on the Collections of the National Museum of China. Ciqi juan [Porcelain section]: Mingdai [Ming dynasty], Shanghai, 2007, pl. 12.

Sotheby's. The Meiyintang Collection, Part III - An Important Selection of Imperial Chinese Porcelains. Hong Kong | 04 Apr 2012, 10:15 AM