A Rare Blue And White Pilgrim Flask for the Islamic Market. Ming Dynasty, I5th Century. Photo Sotheby's 

the crescent-shaped body rising to rosette terminals, applied with a central cylindrical ringed neck with a knopped mouth and a spout to the side, all supported on four ruyishaped feet, painted with undulating leafy lotus scrolls framed by cellular diaper and lappet motifs, the sides with a floral spray and a sun with swirling clouds rising from foaming waves, burnt to a buff orange tone on the underside; 20cm., 7 7/8 in. Lot 102. Estimate 50,000-70,000 GBP. Unsold

PROVENANCE: A German Private Collection.

NOTE DE CATALOGUE: A vessel of this type in the Museum Pusat, Jakarta, is illustrated in Oriental Ceramics. The World's Great Collections, vol. 3, Tokyo, 1982, col. pl. 31; another is published in S.T. Yeo and Jean Martin, Chinese Blue and White Ceramics, Singapore, 1978, pl. 28; and two are included in R.H. Pinder-Wilson and Mary Tregear, 'Two Drinking Flasks from Asia', Oriental Art, Winter, 1070, pp 339-40, pls 6 and 7, in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and pl. 8, from the Sir Percival David collection, sold in these rooms, 29th May 1962, lot 110, and now in the City Art Gallery, Bristol. Pinder-Wilson and Tregear also illustrate a bronze drinking flask of related form from India, ibid., p. 337, pl. 1, and suggest that the vessel derived from a leather original, as evidenced by the ribs running along the crescent shaped body on the Chinese vessels (see p. 337). A drawing of a 'ewer of a Persian boat', excavated near Chiengmai in Thailand, is illustrated in Takatoshi Misugi, Chinese Porcelain Collections in the Near East. Topkapi and Ardebil, vol. 1, Hong Kong, 1981, p. 7 (bottom left).

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art. Londres | 16 mai 2012. www.sothebys.com