Lot 39. A truncated blue and white bottle vase, yuchunping, Ming Dynasty, Yongle period, the mounts 19th century; 41.2 cm., 16 1/4 in., bottle only 27 cm., 10 5/8 in. Estimate 2,500,000-4,000,000 HKD. Lot sold 5,420,000 HKD. Photo Sotheby's

the tall pear-shaped body sweeping up to a tall slender neck (partially missing), fluidly painted in rich cobalt tones ranging from inky blue to black with a dense rose scroll with blooms arranged in two rows surrounded by rose hips and leaves, set between formal borders with round florets, below a band of lotus scroll at the neck and a row of upright plantain leaves, all supported on a broad low foot encircled by a key-fret border, the glaze with a dense overall crackle, the neck replaced by a possibly Indian thin silver mount with a domed cover attached by a chain link, with a repoussé design of florets among formal arabesques with mount 

PROVENANCE: Alam-Gir, 1661-2.
Sotheby's London, 8th/9th July 1974, lot 202.
Collection of F. Gordon Morrill.
Doyle's New York, 16th September 2003, lot 84.
Eskenazi Ltd, London.

EXHIBITED: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1974 (on loan, no. 247).

LITTERATURE: Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 4, no. 1637.

NOTE: This pattern, with its elegant rose scrolls is unusual for its formal borders with round florets above and below the main design, maybe of Middle Eastern or Indian inspiration, which are rarely otherwise encountered in the repertoire of the Yongle porcelain painters. Only two companion pieces appear to exist: one bottle of this design is in the National Museum of Iran in Tehran, from the Ardabil Shrine, see T. Misugi, Chinese Porcelain Collections in the Near East: Topkapi and Ardebil, Hong Kong, 1981, vol. III, pl. A72; the other is in the British Museum, London, from the collection of Harry Oppenheim, illustrated in Jessica Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, no. 3: 17. The design was revived in the Jiajing reign (AD 1522-66) and an example of that period is also in the Meiyintang collection, see Krahl, op. cit., vol. 4, no. 1693.

Porcelain yuhuchun bottle decorated in underglaze blue, Ming dynasty, Yongle period (1403-1424). Height: 31.4 cm. Bequeathed by Henry J Oppenheim, 1947,0712.198 © 2017 Trustees of the British Museum 

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