Page 24 - Ming Porcelain Sothebys march 2018

22 SOTHEBY’S NEW YORK 20 MARCH 2018 MING: LUMINOUS DAWN OF EMPIRE

Excavations in Longquan, Zhejiang province have yielded similar vases.
Compare two yuhuchunping reconstructed from shards illustrated in Ye
Yingting and Hua Yunong, Faxian: Da Ming Chuzhou Longquan guanyao
[Discovery: Imperial ware of the great Ming dynasty from Longquan in
Chuzhou], Hangzhou, 2005, p.102 and p. 110, as well as several fragments of
similar pieces with various incised designs, pp. 112-116.

The Ottoman court in Istanbul expressed their appreciation for a vase of this
type, with scrolling lotus, by embellishing it with jewels and silver-gilt mounts,
see Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul,
London, 1986, vol. I, no. 223. A similar vase also with a lotus design from the
Alexander and Barlow collections was included in the exhibition The Barlow
Collection of Chinese Ceramics, Bronzes and Jades, University of Sussex,
Brighton, 1997, cat. no. 43.

Blue-and-white and underglaze-red counterparts of these yuhuchunping are
in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Qinghua Youlihong/Blue and
White Porcelain with Underglaze Red (I), Gugong Bowuyuan Cang Wenwu
Zhenpin Quanji/The Complete Collections of Treasures of the Palace Museum,
Hong Kong, 2000, pl. 14 and pls. 196 and 197 with peonies and pl. 198 with
lotus. Another blue-and-white example in the Philadelphia Museum of Art is
illustrated in Margaret Medley, Yuan Porcelain and Stoneware, London, pl. 51b.

Similar vases in blue-and-white and underglaze-red are also known with a
pattern of large hatched ruyi panels, rather than the band of smaller trefoils
around the neck. One such example in underglaze-red, from the T.T. Tsui
collection was sold in our London rooms, 7th June, 1994, lot 331.