A rare blue and white 'lotus' meiping, Ming dynasty, Yongle period (1403-1424)
Lot 5. A rare blue and white 'lotus' meiping, Ming dynasty, Yongle period (1403-1424); 24.5 cm, 9 5/8 in. Estimate 400,000 — 600,000 HKD. Lot Sold 1,000,000 HKD (127,710 USD). © Sotheby's.
of baluster form rising to a short everted neck, finely painted in shaded tones of cobalt blue with characteristic ‘heaping and piling’ with three lotus blooms and attendant buds among scrolling foliage, all between a band of detached lotus sprays around the foot and a classic scroll encircling the shoulder, the slightly recessed base left unglazed revealing a smooth white body.
Closely related meiping can be found in important museum collections worldwide; see one from the Qing Court Collection and still in Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red (I), Hong Kong, 2008, pl. 32; one with a cover in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included in the Museum’s exhibition Shi yu xin: Mingdai Yongle huangdi de ciqi/ Pleasingly Pure and Lustrous. Porcelains from the Yongle Reign (1403-1424) of the Ming Dynasty, 2017, cat. no. 52; another in the Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, exhibited in Seika jiki ten [Exhibition of blue and white porcelain from the Shanghai Museum], Matsuya Ginza, Tokyo, 1988, cat. no. 10; and a fourth vase in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol. 9, Tokyo, 1981, pl. 92. Compare also a slightly larger meiping painted with fruits, from the Nagoya tea ceremony collection, sold in these rooms, 8th April 2014, lot 3023.
Sotheby's. Ceramics and Jades from the Collection of Sir Quo-Wei Lee, Hong Kong, 28 november 2019





