A Rare White-Glazed Ewer and Cover. Early Ming Dynasty-Interregnum - Photo Sotheby's

with a voluminous pear-shaped body resting on a nearly straight foot and extending into a waisted neck with a straight angular rim, the tall curved spout connected to the neck by a scroll strut, opposite a curved strap handle attached horizontally to the neck, enhanced with a raised central ridge and a pointed terminal with three knobs of clay, the handle surmounted by a small 'S'-shaped loop, the domed cover with a vertical rim and a tapered flange on the interior fitting tightly onto the ewer, set on one side with a 'S'-shaped loop for attachment to the ewer, the bud-shaped knob sitting on a slightly raised roundel on top, the white porcelain covered overall with a thick smooth 'sweet-white' (tianbai) glaze; 30 cm., 11 3/4 in. Estimation: 1,300,000 - 1,600,000 HKD

PROVENANCE: Christie’s Hong Kong, 31st March 1992, lot 551.
Christie’s Hong Kong, 29th November 2007, lot 1737.
Eskenazi Ltd, London.

EXHIBITED: The Exquisite Chinese Artifacts. Collection of Ching Wan Society, National Museum of History, Taipei, 1995, cat. no.
93.

LITTERATURE: Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 4, no. 1632.

NOTE DE CATALOGUE: Monochrome white ewers were made throughout the Ming dynasty, but the present piece appears so far to be unique in its proportions. The extremely smooth, pleasing glaze is of the tianbai (‘sweet-white’) type of the Yongle reign and suggests an early Ming date; but typical Yongle ewers are quite different in outline, with a thinner neck and a flat, cutout cloud-shaped strut instead of the curled strand of clay that links spout and neck on the present piece. A similar form is, however, known from an important gold ewer discovered in the opulent royal tomb of Zhu Zhanji, Prince Zhuang of Liang, son of the Hongxi Emperor (r. AD 1425), who was buried at Zhongxiang, Hubei province; see Liang Zhu, ed., Liang Zhuang wang mu/Mausoleum of Prince Liang Zhuangwang, Beijing, 2007, vol. I, p. 32, fig. 25 and vol. II, col. pl. 19 (fig. 1). This gold ewer is dated by inscription to the first (and only) year of the Hongxi reign, AD 1425 and recorded to have been made by the imperial workshops. It has a cloud-shaped strut and peach-shaped panels on either side, but is close in its general proportions and in the shape of its cover.

Although the curled 'S'-shaped strut is better known from later ewers, it also appears even earlier, for example on a white ewer with a domed cover without knob, recovered from one of the Song Sheng family tombs, the tomb of Madame Ye, who died in AD 1418. The pieces in her tomb tend to be slightly earlier in date, perhaps being items used during her lifetime; see J.M. Addis, Chinese Ceramics from Datable Tombs and Some Other Dated Material, London and New York, 1978, pl. 39p; and a line drawing in Geng Baochang, Ming Qing ciqi jianding [Appraisal of Ming and Qing porcelain], Hong Kong, 1993, p. 8, fig. 1: 2, who dates the ewer to the Hongwu period. 

While later Ming ewers, such as the piece of Wanli mark and period, also in the Meiyintang collection (Krahl, op. cit., vol. 2, no. 691), may superficially look quite similar, they are very different in their material. The porcelain body and glaze of the present ewer are virtually identical in quality to those of the Yongle ‘sweet-white’ jue in the Meiyintang collection (Krahl, op. cit., vol. 2, no. 654).

Sotheby's. The Meiyintang Collection, Part IV - An Important Selection of Imperial Chinese Porcelains; Hong Kong | 09 oct. 2012, www.sothebys.com