A fine Ming-style blue and white ewer, Seal mark and period of Qianlong (1736-1795)

2 avril 2012

A fine Ming-style blue and white ewer, Seal mark and period of Qianlong (1736-1795)

Lot 28. A fine Ming-style blue and white ewer, Seal mark and period of Qianlong (1736-1795); 27 cm, 10 5/8 in. Estimate 3,000,000-5,000,000 HKD. Sold for 5,060,000 HKD. Photo Sotheby's

the pear-shaped body tapering up to a narrow neck and an everted rim, set on one side with a curved spout joined to the neck by a cloud-shaped strut, opposite the arched strap handle adorned by grooves and surmounted by a small loop on top and accented with three knobs of clay at the base, imitating metalwork studs, finely painted in early Ming style with deep cobalt imitating 'heaping and piling,' with a quatrefoil panel on either side, one enclosing a branch of peaches with two fruit among blossoms and foliage, the other with a branch of loquat with many stylised fruit, the panels flanked by flowers of the 'Four Seasons' with pomegranate, peony, chrysanthemum and camellia, all between the neck collared by lotus scroll and upright plantain leaves, and the foot skirted with a band of upright lappet petals, the spout decorated with a knobby scroll, with ruyi-clouds on the strut and sprays of lingzhi on the handle, inscribed on the base with a six-character reign mark.

Provenance: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 26th October 1993, lot 179.

Provenance: Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, The British Museum, London, 1994.

Literature: Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 4, no. 1714.

Note: This well-known, successful design originated in the Yongle period (AD 1403-24), when ewer styles of the Hongwu reign (AD 1368-98) and ultimately the Yuan dynasty (AD 1279-1368) were developed and improved and matured to a highly pleasing model. Ewers of this form were in the Yongle reign made in many different designs, see, for example, lot 38 in this collection, but the peach-and-loquat version appears to have become the most popular, which it also remained in the Qing dynasty.

A reconstructed ewer from the Yongle stratum of the Ming imperial kiln sites was included in the exhibition Jingdezhen Zhushan chutu Yongle guanyao ciqi [Yongle Imperial porcelain excavated at Zhushan, Jingdezhen], Capital Museum, Beijing, 2007, cat. no. 66.

A Qianlong ewer of this design in the Palace Museum, Beijing, from the Qing court collection is illustrated in Geng Baochang, ed., Gugong Bowuyuan cang Ming chu qinghua ci [Early Ming blue-and-white porcelain in the Palace Museum], Beijing, 2002, vol. II, pl. 210, together with a Yongle prototype, vol. I, pl. 19, and others attributed to the Xuande period, vol. I, pls 95 and 96; and a Jiaqing version, also in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is published in Geng Baochang, ed., Gugong Bowuyuan cang gu taoci ciliao xuancui [Selection of ancient ceramic material from the Palace Museum], Beijing, 2005, vol. II, pl. 249. Another Qianlong piece is in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, together with two Yongle prototypes, illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, ed. John Ayers, London, 1986, vol. III, no. 2565, and vol. II, no. 618. Qianlong examples are also in the Shanghai Museum, included in Lu Minghua, Shanghai Bowuguan zangpin yanjiu daxi / Studies of the Shanghai Museum Collections : A Series of Monographs. Mingdai guanyao ciqi [Ming imperial porcelain], Shanghai, 2007, p. 239, pl. 5-1; and one with a cover in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, is published in Porcelain of the National Palace Museum. Blue-and-White Ware of the Ch'ing Dynasty, vol. II, Hong Kong, 1968, pl.14.

Sotheby's. The Meiyintang Collection, Part III - An Important Selection of Imperial Chinese Porcelains, Hong Kong, 04 Apr 2012, 10:15 AM