Page 68 - Sotheby's London Important Chinese Art Nov. 2019

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PROPERTY FROM AN ENGLISH PRIVATE COLLECTION Alexander Pope in ‘An Early Ming Porcelain in Muslim
A RARE MING-STYLE COPPER-RED Style’ in Richard Ettinghausen (ed.), Aus der Welt der
DECORATED MOONFLASK Islamischen Kunst: Festschrift fuer Ernst Kuehnel, pl. 4B,
QIANLONG SEAL MARK AND PERIOD discusses the Islamic origin of both the form and the
decoration.
the flattened spherical body supported on a small This particular flask is interesting as it was collected by
domed foot and surmounted by a narrow waisted Robert C. Bruce who owned two other moonflasks of
neck with central collar and incurved rim, joined to the similar size and decoration, one decorated in copper-red
shoulders by two strap handles forming right-angles and puce enamels, illustrated in Soame Jenyns, Later
and terminating in moulded ruyi-heads above florette Chinese Porcelain, London, 1951, pl. LXXXVI, fig. 1b, and
bosses, the slightly domed sides each pencilled with sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 28th November 1979, lot
a large medallion of geometric panels, each enclosing 223, the second which was decorated in copper-red alone
different florette and foliate motifs, centred on a lotus and is very close to the present flask, sold in Sotheby’s
spray in a central star-shaped panel, the edges with London, 12th May 1953, lot 133 and now in the Gulbenkian
bands of flower scroll extending from cloud and ruyi Museum of Oriental Art and Archaeology, Durham.
head borders around the foot and the base of the neck,
with flower scrolls and florette-studded lappets around A related flask was included in the Min Chiu Society
the neck, the base inscribed with a six-character seal exhibition An Anthology of Chinese Ceramics, Hong Kong
mark in underglaze blue Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1980, cat. no. 118; another is
Height 17.5 cm, 6⅞ in. illustrated in John Ayers, Chinese Ceramics in The Baur
Collection, vol. 2, Geneva, 1999, pl. 201; and two further
PROVENANCE examples were sold in our Hong Kong rooms, the first, 1st
Collection of Robert C. Bruce (1898-1953). November 1999, lot 370; the second from the collection of
In the family by descent. Sir Quo-Wei Lee, 3rd October 2018, lot 113.
Intricately painted in underglaze-red with a complex £ 30,000-50,000
geometric design, the form and decoration of this flask HK$ 293,000-489,000 US$ 37,500-62,500
closely follows an early Ming blue and white prototype
inspired by Middle-Eastern designs, as found on blue and 清乾隆 釉裏紅蓮花錦紋如意耳抱月瓶
white flask of this design dated to the Yongle period from 《大清乾隆年製》款
the collection of Sir Percival David, now in the British
Museum, London, and illustrated in Regina Krahl and
Jessica Harrison-Hall, Chinese Ceramics: Highlights of 來源
the Sir Percival David Collection, London, 2009, pl. 27. Robert C. Bruce（1898-1953年）收藏，此後家族傳承

Mark

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