Lot 919. From The Au Bak Ling Collection. A fine and exquisite blue and white ‘immortals’ brush pot, Chongzhen period (1628-1644); 15.9 cm high. Price realised HKD 1,270,000 (Estimate HKD 400,000 – HKD 600,000) © Christie's Images Ltd 2025
 

Provenance: Sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 29 November 1976, lot 487

Note: This brush pot is exceptionally well painted depicting immortals and their attributes in a restrained and scholarly style. Compare to several similar brush pots, all with different figural scenes, illustrated in R. S. Kilburn, Transitional Wares and Their Forerunners, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1981, pl. 84; in Chinese Porcelains of the Seventeenth Century, China Institute Gallery, New York, 1995, no. 34; and in Harry M. Garner, Oriental Blue and White, London, 1954, no. 60A.

Lot 919. From The Au Bak Ling Collection. A fine and exceptional inscribed ‘phoenix and peony’ sleeve vase, Chongzhen period, dated jiaxu cyclical year corresponding to 1634; 45.5 cm high. Price realised HKD 2,032,000 (Estimate HKD 500,000 – HKD 1,000,000) © Christie's Images Ltd 2025
 

Provenance: Douglas J K Wright Ltd, London (according to label)
Sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 12 May 1976, lot 101

Literature: R. S. Kilburn, Transitional Wares and Their Forerunners, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1981, p.33, no.16

Note: This vase is vividly painted on one side depicting a phoenix in flight above peonies and bamboo, the other side inscribed with a poem followed by a signature Wang Runzhi and jiaxu cyclical date. Stylistically, the exquisite free strokes and multiple shades of blue seen on this vase are typically seen on vases from the late Ming period, allowing us to date this vase to jiaxu year of the Chongzhen reign, corresponding to 1634.

A vase in the Musée Guimet, Paris, bearing the same date but painted with butterflies and grasshoppers among flowering plants and lacking the phoenix, is illustrated in Daisy Lion-Goldschmidt, Ming Porcelain, London, 1978, cat. no. 247. The present vase is discussed together with the Guimet vase by R. S. Kilburn in the publication Transitional Wares and Their Forerunners, who regards them as the earliest precisely datable pieces of this style of decoration.