Lot 140. A rare late Ming blue and white armorial flask for the Iberian market, Early 17th Century; 11 7/8 in. (30 cm.) high. Estimate 40,000 - GBP 60,000. Price realised GBP 138,650. © Christie's Images Ltd 2002.

Painted on one side of the flattened circular body with the arms of Castille and Leon within scrolls on a washed blue ground and radiating lotus, encircled by a pale washed blue band at the circular rim reserved with small flower heads, the reverse with two insects in flight hovering amongst prunus, fruit sprays and grasses with similar flowering and fruiting branches on the neck divided by two almost- horizontal lines from four upright lotus sprays below the blue-washed rim, the flat short sides with scrolling lotus, minor crack to one corner of foot.

Literature: Sekai Toji Zenshu, Shogakukan, Ceramic Art of the World, volume 14, Ming Dynasty, Tokyo, 1976, fig.198, p.300.

The result of thermoluminescence test, Oxford, P102u10, is consistent with the dating of this lot.

Note: These arms represent those of King Philip II of Spain (1556-1598, who also became King Philip I of Portugal in 1580, although the design was probably taken from a Spanish coin. Flasks such as these are, however, not actualy mentioned in the inventory of the royal collection. The design was probably taken from a Spanish coin. The shape of the flask, highly unusual in Chinese porcelain, probably derives from an earlier Middle Eastern metal prototype. See D. Barrett, Islamic Metalwork in the British Museum, London, 1949, pl.9 for a 13th Century Persian bronze pilgrim flask of related form.

Similar blue and white flasks, some with figural decoration replacing the floral decoration on the reverses, and many with reduced, restored or metal-replaced necks, are in museum collections around the world, including the British Museum (J. Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, pp.281-2), the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Peabody Musem, Salem (Highlights of Asian Export Art, p.14), the Museum of Dr. Anastácio Gonçalves, Lisbon, the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, and the Tokyo National Museum. 

A few are or have been in private collections: the Mottahedeh example (Howard and Ayers, China for the West, London and New York, 1978, vol. I, no. 8), which was at one time sold in Sotheby's London, 24 April 1966, lot 64 (590 gns. to Mrs. Glatz), sold Sotheby's New York, 25 January 1989, lot 318; the Dr. Amaral Cabral example, originally in the collection of Ricardo Espirito Santo Silva (Azul e Branco da China, no. 54), at one time sold Sotheby's London, 3 November 1953, lot 26 (36gns. to M. de Haan) ; the example from the George Duff collection, now in the Dr. Anastácio Gonçalves Museum (M. Beurdeley, Porcelain of the East India Companies, London, 1962, fig.61, p.87, and N. de Castro, Chinese Porcelain and the Heraldry of the Empire, Oporto, 1988, p.26).