Lot 3312. A fine and rare Ming blue and white brushwasher, Jiajing six-character mark within double-circles and of the period (1522-1566); 6 3/8 in. (16.2 cm.) wide. Estimate HK$5,000,000 - HK$8,000,000 ($647,864 - $1,036,582). Price Realized HK$7,240,000 ($937,888). © Christie's Images Ltd 2014.

The deep, slightly flared sides of the brushwasher is subtly moulded as ten petals rising to a slightly everted rim. Painted in rich tones of underglaze blue with a central medallion of fish swimming amidst water weeds and the theme is repeated in a frieze on the exterior. The edges of the unglazed foot rim burnt orange in the firing., Japanese wood box. 

Provenance: Bluett & Sons, London
The Falk Collection
Sold at Christie's New York, 16 October 2001, lot 143

Note: While a number of dishes with this design are known, brushwashers from this reign period are very rare. A blue and white Jiajing brushwasher of similar size, shape and decoration to the Falk example is in the collection of the National Palace Museum, and illustrated in Porcelain of the National Palace Museum - Blue-and-White Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Book V, Hong Kong, 1963, pp. 62-3, pl. 21; another is illustrated in Chinese Porcelain, The S.C. Ko Tianminlou Collection, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1987, Part I, no. 41. This design can also be seen on an earlier Yongle prototype such as the brushwasher decorated with dragon and phoenix roundels offered as the present sale, lot 3310. Compare also a Xuande-marked example in the collection of Peter Boode, illustrated in the International Exhibition of Chinese Art, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1935-6, no. 1468. The 'fish in water pond theme' appears to be a popular motif in underglaze blue during the Jiajing reign as can be seen from two slightly different examples of dishes in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Blue and White Porcelain with Underglaze Red (II), The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Commerical Press Hong Kong, 2000, pp. 138-9, nos. 127-8, which in turn copied dishes of the Xuande reign, like the example in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in volume (I) of the same series, p. 144, no. 136, and the example, which is very close to the Falk brushwasher, excavated from the site of the imperial kiln at Jingdezhen in 1993 and illustrated in Jingdezhen chutu Yuan Ming guanyao ciqi, Beijing, 1999, p. 198, no. 160.