Lot 39. A blue and white beaker vase, gu, Circa 1640; 43.2cm (17in) high. Sold for £20,000 (€25,394). © Bonhams 2001-2016.

The flaring neck vibrantly painted with a scene of a kneeling attendant presenting an official's cap to a dignitary surrounded by attendants with a horse and soldiers carrying banners, the mid-section decorated with a scholar reclining at leisure next to a pile of books while his boy-attendant brings his zither in its silk case, the lower section with pendent leaf lappets, the rim incised with a floral scroll and around the lower body a chevron band. 

Note: According to Scarlett Jang, generic representations of the emperor's emissary handing a scroll or cap of official appointment was a popular motif of Zhe school and court painters during the Ming dynasty. The present vase highlights a dilemma faced by the scholar-officials after the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1644. To serve the emperor was to fulfill the highest Confucian obligation, but to serve the invading Manchu emperor would compromise loyalty to the fallen Ming. See J.Curtis, Chinese Porcelains of the Seventeenth Century: Landscapes, Scholars' Motifs and Narratives, New York, 1995, p.144. 

Compare a dish, dated to the Shunzhi period, with a similar motif illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Blue and White Porcelain with Underglaze Red (III), Hong Kong, 2002, pp.4-5. 

Bonhams. AUCTION 23237: FINE CHINESE ART, 10:30 BST - LONDON, NEW BOND STREET