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achieved recognition for their poetry, calligraphy No other Longquan jar with this topic is, however,
or painting even in this patriarchal society. A recorded and no Longquan jar with a continuous
famous female artist of the Yuan dynasty, for figure scene appears to be preserved with a
example, was Guan Daosheng (1262-1319), wife cover. Three such jars, but carved in less high
of Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322), himself one of the relief, have been sold in our rooms. Two of
leading Yuan painters, who was renowned as a them depict ladies with attendants in a garden
painter, calligrapher and poet in her own right; setting, occupied with more traditional female
see Barnhart, op.cit., pp. 189-90, where one of pastimes such as the picking of flowers: one
her landscape paintings is illustrated, which she from the Russell Beverley collection, illustrated
had dedicated to another lady. in John Ayers, ‘Some Characteristic Wares of
the Yüan Dynasty’, Transactions of the Oriental
In the arts of China, the motif of the Four Ceramic Society, vol. 29, 1954-55, pp. 69-86, pl.
Scholarly Accomplishments is frequently 36, fig. 7, was sold in our London rooms, 18th
depicted in various media, but hardly ever with February 1947, lot 25; the other jar, of smaller
female protagonists; one exception besides size, from the collection of Mrs R. Collin Smith
the present piece is a blue and white jar from and later the Jingguantang collection, illustrated
the Shanghai Museum, made about a century in Ye Peilan, Yuandai ciqi [Porcelain of the Yuan
later, which shows the topic rather differently dynasty], Beijing, 1998, pl. 445 B, was sold in our
rendered. The jar was included in the exhibition London rooms, 7th February 1967, lot 76, and at
Ming. Fifty Years that Changed China, The British Christie’s Hong Kong, in 1993, 1994 and again 3rd
Museum, London, 2014, catalogue pp. 156-7 November 1996, lot 540. The third jar, from the
and p. 193, fig. 165, where it was juxtaposed Su Lin An collection, also smaller and showing
with a male counterpart from the Victoria and scenes from a Yuan play, was sold in these
Albert Museum, London, p. 194, fig. 167. That the rooms, 31st October 1995, lot 310.
motif entered the repertoire of potters both at
Longquan and Jingdezhen underlines how deeply Similar figure designs are also known from taller
literati women were admired. jars with animal mask handles, see a piece from
196 SOTHEBY’S 蘇富比
