Lot 121. The Leshantang Collection. A very rare and finely painted blue and white 'melon' charger, Ming dynasty, Yongle period (1403-1424); 39.5 cm. Lot Sold 6,985,000 HKD (Estimate 2,000,000 - 3,000,000 HKD). © 2023 Gerhard Richter © Sotheby's 2023

sturdily potted with rounded sides rising from a slightly tapered foot to a flat rim with a rolled edge, superbly painted to the interior with a fruiting and flowering melon tree, wreathed by a composite floral scroll bearing rose, chrysanthemum, pomegranate, tree peony, herbaceous peony, lotus and camellia on the cavetto and a band of crested waves on the rim, the exterior with six detached fruiting sprays of cherry, ginkgo, peach, lychee, grape and pomegranate, with the cobalt blue beautifully displaying the characteristic 'heaped and piled' effect, the base unglazed.

Provenance: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 15th November 1988, lot 118.

Literature: The Exquisite Chinese Artifacts, Collection of Ching Wan Society, Museum of History, Taipei, 1995, cat. no. 91.

Note: The depiction of melon vines in Chinese art traces its roots to the Song and Yuan dynasties; it was a popular subject in the bird-and-flower painting genre (fig. 1), where melons were depicted in a naturalistic demeanour, often symbolising bountiful harvests and associated with autumn. Craftsmen of the Yuan and Ming dynasties likely drew inspiration from the paintings of great masters, and incorporated the melon motif into their decorative arrangements, as seen on the lacquerware of Yuan and the blue and white porcelains of Yuan and early Ming. The stylistic adoption resulted in the melon motif shifting away from symbolising harvests, but has subsequently been understood as a symbol of prosperity and a long lineage of sons and grandsons, as illustrated in the saying guadie mianmian, 'continuously spreading like melon vines'. The shift in symbolism likely explains the peculiar and unnaturalistic depiction of melons on the present charger: the melons do not rest on the ground as they would in nature, and instead grow from a tree with their vines and tendrils spreading out laden with large and small fruits, likely an allusion to sons branching out from the family tree and perpetuating the family line.

Fig. 1 Anonymous, Melon And Grasses, From The Personal Collection of The Late Sir Joseph Hotung, sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 8th october 2022, lot 2.

Yongle chargers adorned with melon vines are a rare and sought-after instance of artistic variation from its more common peers, which are typically painted with lotus or other floral motifs. Of the extant 'melon' charger examples, there are eight preserved in important museums worldwide, one in the famed Tianminlou Collection, and the present charger which has been retained in the Leshantang Collection for over three decades since 1988.

Museum examples with this melon vines motif include one from the Qing court collection, now preserved in the Beijing Palace Museum and illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red (I), Hong Kong, 2000, pl. 57; another in the British Museum (accession no. 1954,0420.1) with an illustrious provenance: it was sold twice in our London rooms on 26th May 1937, lot 21 and 29th May 1940, lot 202 and formerly in the collections of Wu Lai-hsi, George Eumorfopoulos and A.D. Brankston; another four in the Freer Gallery of Art (accession no. F1953.76a-b), Idemitsu Museum of Art, Shanghai Museum, and Kimbell Art Museum (accession no. AP 1970.03). A further example was formerly in the collection of Dr Ip Yee and adorned the cover of the seminal estate sale in 1984 (19th November 1984, lot 177), and subsequently entered the Tianminlou Collection, illustrated in Blue and White Porcelain from the Collection of the Tianminou Foundation, Shanghai, 1996, cat. no. 26.

Museum examples with this melon vines motif include one from the Qing court collection, now preserved in the Beijing Palace Museum and illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red (I), Hong Kong, 2000, pl. 57; another in the British Museum (accession no. 1954,0420.1) with an illustrious provenance: it was sold twice in our London rooms on 26th May 1937, lot 21 and 29th May 1940, lot 202 and formerly in the collections of Wu Lai-hsi, George Eumorfopoulos and A.D. Brankston; another four in the Freer Gallery of Art (accession no. F1953.76a-b), Idemitsu Museum of Art, Shanghai Museum, and Kimbell Art Museum (accession no. AP 1970.03). A further example was formerly in the collection of Dr Ip Yee and adorned the cover of the seminal estate sale in 1984 (19th November 1984, lot 177), and subsequently entered the Tianminlou Collection, illustrated in Blue and White Porcelain from the Collection of the Tianminou Foundation, Shanghai, 1996, cat. no. 26.

Compare also a smaller charger in this 'melon' design (d. 33.6 cm), excavated from the Yongle stratum at Dongmentou, Zhushan, Jingdezhen, included in the Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1996, cat. no. 46.

op. cit., pl. 5-10. This design was also copied during the Kangxi reign; see a pair of Kangxi cups with apocryphal Longqing marks (Lu Minghua, pl. 5-48).