A very rare blue and white circular ewer - Yuan Dynasty, second quarter of the 14th century

Of flattened circular form with a simple tapering loop spout and elaborately curved handle, painted on one side in bold characteristic rich dark blue showing traces of 'heaping and piling' with a single flying phoenix amongst a dense meander of flowering leafy peony, the other side with three large peony sprays issuing from budding leafy branches, both domed panels within a narrower border of continuous chrysanthemum meander, coiling wispy clouds beneath the handle and spout (handle reattached, minor rim glaze frit). 19.5cm (7¾in) high. - Estimate: £40,000 - 60,000 - unsold.

Footnote: A ewer of this kind, dating from the earliest period of commercial production of blue and white porcelain at Jingdezhen, clearly owes much in its form to a metal origin, particularly in the domed panels on the sides and elaborately looped handle, neither of which are natural ceramic forms. Although much attention has been focused on the emergence of new designs and shapes during the Yuan Period, now regarded as a dynamic moment in the evolution of Chinese ceramics, only very few examples of ewers of this form are recorded. One example is in Beijing, at the Capital Museum, illustrated by Zhu Yu Ping, Yuan Blue and White p.166, no. 6-66. Other examples are known purely with a white glaze; see for example the comparable ewer incised with a rhinoceros, The Tsui Museum of Art, 1991, Catalogue pl.52. A third example, painted only with phoenix, was sold in London, 15 June 1988, lot 92.

Bonhams. Fine Asian Art, 6 Nov 2006.  New Bond Street