Lot 272. A rare blue and white crescent-shaped flask and cover, Ming dynasty, 15th-16th century. Length 8 in., 20.3 cm. Estimate 30,000 — 50,000 USD. Lot sold 37,500 USD. Photo: Sotheby's.

the crescent-shaped body rising to rosette terminals, applied with a central cylindrical ringed neck with a bulbous mouth and a small cylindrical spout to the side, all supported on four low ruyi-shaped feet, painted with two bands of leafy foliate meander divided by a raised U-form rib and a narrow chevron border, the sides with a floral spray rising from waves, base unglazed (2). 

Provenance: Acquired in the 1970s and 80s.

Note: This unusual form is thought to be derived from a leather prototype, the raised filets simulating the sewn seams. With most known examples found in Indonesia, at the time a dominantly Islamic region, these distinctive shapes are also reminiscent of the Mohammedan symbol of the crescent moon. 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; another in Christiaan J.A. Jorg, Chinese Ceramics in the Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, London, 1997, no. 10. 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. A similar example was sold in our London rooms, 5th October 2011, lot 349.

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, New York, 15 sept. 2015