Lot 2801. A rare anhua-decorated white-glazed‘dragon’ stem bowl, Yongle incised four-character seal mark and of the period (1403-1425); 15.5 cm diam, box. Price realised HKD 2,016,000 (Estimate HKD 800,000 – HKD 1,200,000). © Christie's Images Ltd 2023.

Provenance: Sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 20 November 1985, lot 46.

Note: The present stem bowl has the beautifully balanced profile characteristic of the early 15th century, and is covered in the soft lustrous white glaze, which is called tianbai or 'sweet white' in Chinese. This glaze was developed in the Yongle reign and appears to have been a particular favourite of the emperor. More than ninety percent of the porcelains from this period, which were found at the site of the imperial kilns, were white wares. This reflects the aesthetic preference of the emperor, who demonstrated a special appreciation of plain white items, such as white jades. It is also a reflection of his adherence to Lamaist Buddhism.

This stem bowl also belongs to one of the earliest groups of porcelains to bear the reign mark of the ruling emperor. On the interior of the stem bowl is a four-character reign mark reading Yongle nian zhi, 'Made in the Yongle reign', which is written in a style of calligraphy based on that of the emperor's favourite calligrapher, Shen Du. The reign of the Yongle Emperor was the first in which reign marks regularly appeared on porcelains made for the Chinese court.

There are very few examples of Yongle-marked white-glazed stem bowls with anhua-decorated dragons. An almost identical example is in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated by Liu Liang-yu, A Survey of Chinese Ceramics - 4 - Ming Official Wares, Taipei, 1991, p. 35. Also in the same collection is another stem bowl decorated with five dragons, collection number: guci 003170. A further example was exhibited at Hong Kong Museum of Art, #popcolours: The Aesthetics of Hues in Antiquities from the HKMoA Collection, Hong Kong, 5 November 2021 – 30 March 2022.

Compare also with a similar Yongle-marked white-glazed stem bowl decorated with two five-clawed dragons, sold at Christie’s London, The Frederick M. Mayer Collection of Chinese Art, 24 June 1974, lot 82. Another comparable but decorated with the Eight Buddhist Emblems, was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 1 June 2016, lot 3221.

Lot 2814. A fine and very rare Ming tianbai-glazed anhua-decorated moon flask, bianping, Yongle period (1403-1425); 29.8 cm high, Japanese wood box. Price realised HKD 10,055,000 (Estimate HKD 10,000,000 – HKD 15,000,000). © Christie's Images Ltd 2023.

Provenance: Sold at Sotheby's New York, 21 September 2005, lot 63.

Note: The elegant flask is well potted with a flattened, but slightly domed, circular lower section and a globular upper section narrowing to a short neck and a mouth contracting to match the width of the waisted area between the upper and lower sections of the vessel. The flask stands on a rounded rectangular foot and has strap handles on either side, joining the neck and shoulders of the vessel, with petal-shaped terminals on the shoulders. Both of the circular flattened sides are incised with an arabesque roundel to the centre surrounding a yinyang symbol.

For most connoisseurs of Chinese ceramics the so-called moonflasks are classic Chinese porcelain forms. However, the form has a surprisingly long history in Western art, although it is probable that the Chinese early Ming dynasty form was inspired either by metalwork or glass of the Islamic era. The present tianbai or 'sweet white' glazed example appears to be unique with exception of an excavated example, without the incised decoration, included in the exhibition, Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1996, p. 245, no. 91. It is interesting to note that the excavated flask is almost the same size (30.1 cm. high) but lacks the oval foot ring. In addition, in the Catalogue it is noted by Wan Shufang that tianbai glazed flasks dating to the late Yongle period have an oval foot ring and are incised with an Islamic pattern similar to similarly shaped flasks decorated in underglaze blue, ibid, p. 244. Compare the pattern with a blue and white flask from the Jingguantang and Huang Ding Xuan Collections, sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 28 November 2006, lot 1512.

Compare with four other similarly decorated white-glazed flasks, the first is in National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Pleasingly Pure and Lustrous: Porcelains from the Yongle Reign (1403-1424) of the Ming Dynasty, Taipei, 2017, no. 138; the second in the collection of the Asia Society, illustrated by Denise Patry Leidy, Treasures of Asian Art: The Asia Society's Mr and Mrs John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, New York, 1994, pl. 170; and two in Shanghai Museum Collection, one of which is illustrated by Lu Minghua, Mingdai Guanyao Ciqi, Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2004, p. 129, fig. 3-49. The Shanghai Museum flask is dated Xuande period but the author noted the discovery of similar flasks excavated from the Yongle stratum and at present known examples are extremely rare, ibid, p. 128.