A yellow-ground green-enamelled ‘Longevity’ dish, Jiajing mark and period (1522-1566)
Lot 39. A yellow-ground green-enamelled ‘Longevity’ dish, Jiajing mark and period (1522-1566); 14.5cm., 5 3/4 in. Estimate 15,000 — 20,000 GBP (20,348 - 27,130 EUR). Lot sold 20,000 GBP. Photo courtesy Sotheby's
the shallow rounded sides rising from a tapered foot to a flared rim, incised and decorated with green enamels against an egg-yolk yellow ground, the interior with a central medallion enclosing a stylised shoucharacter formed from entwined branches bearing eight fruiting peaches in a garden with lingzhi, the exterior similarly decorated with shou characters amongst meandering branches of fruiting peaches, the white base inscribed with a six-character reign mark, Japanese wood box. Quantité: 2
Provenance: Mayuyama & Co. Ltd., Tokyo.
Note: This dish depicts a fruiting peach tree, an auspicious symbol in China, with the bark contorted to form a shou (longevity) character and bearing eight peaches, to represent the Eight Immortals. The Jiajing Emperor was a devout Daoist and as a result, decoration influenced by Daoist iconography was favoured during his reign.
A closely related dish in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, was included in the Museum’s exhibition Good Fortune, Long Life, Health and Peace. A Special Exhibition of Porcelains with Auspicious Designs, Taipei, 1995, cat. no. 2; and another from the Sir Percival David collection and now in the British Museum, London, is illustrated in R.L. Hobson, The Wares of the Ming Dynasty, London, 1923, pl. 39, fig. 2. See also a dish similarly incised with a pine tree in the form of a shou character, in the Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, illustrated in Lu Minghua, Mindai guanyao ciqi, Shanghai, 2007, pl. 1-64.
Dish with peach tree in the form of a longevity character, Ming dynasty, Jiajing mark and period, AD 1522–1566, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province. Porcelain with incised decoration, underglaze cobalt-blue mark and green and yellow enamels, 3 x 14,6 cm. On loan from Sir Percival David collection, PDF 726 © Trustees of the British Museum
This motif is also known from yellow-and-green enamelled bowls of Jiajing mark and period, such as one illustrated in L. Reidemeister, Ming. Porzellane in Schwedischen Sammlungen, Berlin, 1935, pl. 32a; and from dishes painted in the wucaipalette; see one in the Norton collection, sold twice in these rooms, 5th November 1963, lot 182, and 1st/2nd April 1974, lot 231; and a pair from the H.M. Knight collection, sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 20th May 1980, lot 72, and again in these rooms, 13th July 2005, lot 186.
Sotheby's. The Soul of Japanese Aesthetics – The Tsuneichi Inoue Collection, Londres, 13 mai 2015, 10:00 AM