Lot 3606. An exceptionally rare anhua-decorated blue and white ‘dragon’ stem bowl, Mark and period of Xuande (1426-1435); d. 15.6 cm, 6 1/8  in. Estimate Upon Request. Lot Sold 74,962,000 HKD. Courtesy Sotheby's.

 well potted with deep rounded sides rising to an everted rim supported on a tall hollow foot slightly flaring at the base, the exterior superbly painted in rich cobalt-blue tones with a pair of scaly five-clawed dragons soaring sinuously, one with its head turned back, the other with its head looking forward, above a band of jagged rocks and reserved against a meticulously rendered ground of pale blue turbulent waves, the stem similarly decorated with five jagged rocks rising from the base set against a pale blue wave ground, the interior inscribed in the centre with a six-character reign mark within a double circle, enircled by a pair of striding dragons rendered in the anhua technique around the sides.

Provenance: Christie's London, 1st April 1968, lot 121.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 24th November 1981, lot 65.
Collection of T.Y. Chao (1912-1999).
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 20th May 1986, lot 15.

Literature: Adrian M. Joseph, Ming Porcelains: their Origins and Development, London, 1971, pl. 28.
Anthony du Boulay, Christie's Pictorial History of Chinese Ceramics, London, 1984, p. 120, fig. 1.
Sotheby’s Hong Kong – Twenty Years, 1973-1993, Hong Kong, 1993, pl. 61.

Making the Emperor See Hidden Dragons
Regina Krahl

Almost no other blue-and-white design of the Xuande reign (1426-1435) represented such a perfect vehicle for Jingdezhen’s potters to show off their prowess like this stem bowl and its rare companions. No previous or later porcelains have documented in any comparable way the artisans’ newly acquired ability to play with cobalt tones at will, to mix and fire them so precisely that they evoke exactly the desired effects: an impressive deep royal blue to convey majestic and powerful animals contrasting with the subtlest shades of pale blue to suggest sweet, unthreatening waters. The efforts to create distinctive tones of cobalt blue were clearly following the tradition of ink painting, where depth, emphasis and even drama were always invoked through simple shades of black and grey.

And as if this was not admirable enough, the imperial kilns conjured up another trick, the still mysterious technique of creating a design that is hidden, anhua, and not obvious to the casual viewer, but takes some effort to be seen – a technique never successfully replicated in later periods. Since in the Xuande reign, the interest at court in the artefacts from Jingdezhen’s imperial kilns had finally been fully aroused, the potters now strove not only to justify the attention they received, but to amplify it. To go to the extreme lengths of adding highly complex decoration that is all but invisible can have no other reason than trying to engage the Emperor directly with the porcelains delivered to the court, to get him to handle them, to look at them closely, to make him actively aware of the virtuosity of Jingdezhen’s artisans, in short, to impress him.

The Xuande Emperor continued the patronage of the Tibetan Buddhist clergy, their monasteries and temples, which the Yongle Emperor (r. 1403-1424) had initiated on a grand scale. Stem bowls appear to have been used in Buddhist rituals and placed on Buddhist altars. Many stem bowls of this form, mainly in monochrome white, are known from the Yongle period and many different designs were commissioned by the Xuande Emperor. Those decorated with imperial five-clawed dragons and inscribed with the imperial reign mark left no doubt about the pious imperial donor who was thus immortalised. A number of stem bowls almost certainly bestowed by these two Emperors are still preserved in Tibet today, for example, in the Sakya (Sa-skya) Monastery in Xigaze (Shigatse) and in the Potala Palace in Lhasa, see the exhibition catalogue Xueyu cangzhen. Xizang wenwu jinghua/Treasures from Snow Mountains. Gems of Tibetan Cultural Relics, Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, 2001, cat. nos 93-97, which include a white Yongle example with incised dragons and a Xuande stem bowl with blue five-clawed dragons and polychrome lotus.

The present design is known from only three other pieces, all of Xuande mark and period, and four other examples of a close variant are recorded, most of them in museum collections. A very similar piece in the Capital Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in Shoudu Bowuguan cang ci xuan [Selection of porcelains from the Capital Museum], Beijing, 1991, pl. 101; another in the National Museum of China, Beijing, is published in Zhongguo Guojia Bowuguan guancang wenwu yanjiu congshu / Studies on the Collections of the National Museum of China. Ciqi juan [Porcelain section]: Mingdai [Ming dynasty], Shanghai, 2007, pl. 40; and a third, from the Meiyintang collection and included in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 4, no. 1662, was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 27th April 1997, lot 71 and in these rooms, 4th April 2012, lot 29.

A variant of the design has fewer rocks around the foot and a narrow border of curly ripples instead; a piece of that pattern in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is published in Mingdai Xuande yuyao ciqi/Imperial Porcelains from the Reign of Xuande in the Ming Dynasty, Beijing, 2015, pl. 28 (fig. 1); one in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is illustrated in Mingdai Xuande guanyao jinghua tezhan tulu /Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Selected Hsüan-te Imperial Porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, Taipei, 1998, cat. no. 108 (fig. 2); one, with the anhua inside either lacking or virtually invisible, is in the Musée Guimet, Paris, from the Grandidier collection, see Xavier Besse, La Chine des porcelaines, Paris, 2004, pl. 11; and another from the Xiling collection, at times on display at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, was sold twice in these rooms, 28th April 1992, lot 32, and 9th October 2007, lot 1552, and once at Christie’s Hong Kong 30th November 2016, lot 3310, and is illustrated on the dust jacket of the Xiling collection catalogue (Xiling Collection, n.p., 2011, cat. no. 15). 

Blue and white ‘dragon’ stem bowl, mark and period of Xuande. © Collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing.

Blue and white ‘dragon’ stem bowl, mark and period of Xuande Qing court collection. Courtesy of the National Palace Museum, Taipei.

Coupe sur pied à décor de dragon, règne de Xuande (1426-1435). Ancienne collection Ernest Grandidier. Paris, musée Guimet - musée national des Arts asiatiques, G2787 © RMN-Grand Palais (musée Guimet, Paris) / Thierry Ollivier.

A superb and extremely rare blue and white 'dragon' stembowl, mark and period of Xuande (1426-1435); 15.2cm., 6 in. Estimate 9,000,000 — 12,000,000 HKD. Lot sold 35,047,500 HKD at Sotheby's, 9th October 2007, lot 1552. Courtesy Sotheby's.  

Cf. my post: A superb and extremely rare blue and white 'dragon' stembowl, mark and period of Xuande (1426-1435)

An extremely rare and superbly painted anhua-decorated blue and white ‘dragon’ stem bowl, Xuande six-character mark in underglaze blue within a double circle and of the period (1426-1435). Estimate HKD 60,000,000 - HKD 80,000,000 (USD 7,770,462 - USD 10,360,616). Price Realised HKD 68,860,000 (USD 8,919,284) at Christie’s Hong Kong 30th November 2016, lot 3310. © Christie's Images Ltd 2016.

Cf. my post: An extremely rare and superbly painted anhua-decorated blue and white ‘dragon’ stem bowl, Xuande mark and of the period