Lot 456. A fine and rare wucai 'garlic head' vase, mark and period of Wanli (1573-1620), 53.8cm., 21 1/4 in. Estimate 3,500,000 — 4,500,000 HKD. Sold for 4,040,000 HKD. Photo: Sotheby's.

the stoutly potted large pear-shaped body decorated in the wucai palette with frolicking mandarin ducks, herons and various other birds in a lotus pond grown with reeds and willow trees, beneath a band of ruyilappets at the shoulder dividing foliate flowerheads, the tall neck with butterflies, a frog and a cricket amongst flower sprays issuing from ornamental rocks, the garlic-head shaped mouth with an elaborate band of ruyi-lappets enclosing lotus sprigs and hanging jewels, beneath the rim with the mark inscribed within a cartouche reserved on a multi-coloured key-fret border, the base unglazed.

Note: The present vase belongs to a group of wucai vases of the same shape with varying decoration.  A similar vase from the Palace Museum, Beijing, was included in Ming Qing Works of Art, Beijing, 1974, col.pl. 9.  See also one illustrated in John Ayers, The Baur Collection, vol. 2, Geneva, 1969, no. A203; and two related vases from the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, with waterfowl design, foliage scroll around the shoulder and pendent foliage around the head, exhibited by the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, and illustrated in Imperial overglaze - Enamelled Wares in the Late Ming Dynasty, Osaka, 1995, pl. 22.  For an example decorated with dragons chasing ‘flaming pearls’ see Liu Liang-yu, Ming Official Wares: A Survey of Chinese Ceramics, Taipei, 1991, p. 257.