Page 119 - Sotheby's October 3 2017 Chinese Art
P. 119
fig. 1 fig. 2
Anonymous court painter, Cats at Play, late Ming dynasty, colours on silk Tianbai ‘neifu’ meiping, Ming dynasty, Yongle period, Qing court collection
© Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei © Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei
Another early Ming meiping attributed to the characteristic ‘heaping and piling’ effect of the more elaborate borders, depicting melon, ginkgo,
Xuande reign, in the collection of the Shanghai cobalt blue, highlighting the depth and texture cherry and grape in addition to the fruits found
Museum, is illustrated together with a Yongzheng of the design. This effect, caused by the specific on this six-spray decorated meiping. See a pair of
copy in Lu Minghua, Shanghai Bowuguan zangpin chemical composition of the vivid blue colour covered examples excavated in Haidian district,
yanjiu daxi/Studies of the Shanghai Museum imported from Iran, became a trademark of the Beijing, and preserved in the Capital Museum,
Collections: A Series of Monographs. Mingdai imperial blue and white wares from the early Ming one illustrated in Fujioka Ryoichi and Hasebe
guanyao ciqi [Ming imperial porcelain], Shanghai, dynasty and was much desired and copied in Gakuji, eds, op.cit., col. pl. 142.
2007, pls 5-21 and 5-22 (images reversed); the succeeding dynasty. During the Yongzheng
and an early Ming example in the Jingdezhen period (1723-1735), the Emperor commissioned This meiping comes from the collection of
Ceramic Museum is published in Keitokuchin jiki the Jingdezhen kilns to imitate this type of Tage Wøldike Schmidt (1915-2010), the former
[Jingdezhen ceramics], Kyoto, 1982, pl. 36. A meiping, probably based on an antique vessel director of the East Asiatic Company, a Danish
meiping of this design and similar size from the sent from the palace. Copies were continuously trading and shipping company founded by Hans
Edward T. Chow collection, was sold in these made in the Qianlong period (1736-1795), but Niels Andersen in Copenhagen in 1897. Schmidt
rooms, 19th May 1981, lot 409, together with a they diverge in proportion and painting style joined the company in 1933 and was posted to
Qianlong version with fruit and flower sprays, lot from the Ming dynasty originals and emphasise the Far East, including China, since the 1930s.
546. A larger Yongle example from the Estate a type of precision which is more consistent In 1946 he became the branch manager of
of Laurance S. Rockefeller was sold in our New with their contemporary counterparts. For Qing Tianjin and was promoted to managing director
York rooms, 21st/22nd September 2005, lot 64. dynasty copies besides the ones listed above, see of the company in 1964. At the beginning of the
Two further meiping of this design and similar a Yongzheng meiping and a Qianlong one in the twentieth century, the East Asiatic Company
size have been sold in these rooms; one from a collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, included owned several well-established regional offices
Nagoya tea ceremony collection, 8th April 2014, in Gugong Bowuyuan cang Ming chu qinghua ci, in China and their branch managers in many of
lot 3023 and the other, 7th October 2015, lot op.cit., vol. 2, pls 185 and 202. these cities, including in Hankou, Harbin, Dalian
3607. and Qingdao, were appointed to represent the
In the early Ming dynasty, meiping of similar form Danish government.
Finely potted and smoothly covered with a tactile but with a more complex design were made.
glaze, the present meiping beautifully displays the They are painted with ten fruit sprays between
IMPORTANT CHINESE ART 117
