Page 46 - Kraak Porcelain, Jorge Welsh

22 Square bottle with
a coat-of-arms
attributed to the
Portuguese Families
Vilas-Boas and Faria,
or Vaz

Ming dynasty, Wanli/Tianqi
period ( - )
Chinese porcelain decorated
in underglaze cobalt blue
Height: . cm; width: . cm:
depth: . cm

A small bottle heavily potted of square cross-section
with rounded shoulders surmounted by a short neck
with a slightly flared lip. It is painted in deep shades of
cobalt blue, darkening in some areas to a blackish-blue,
beneath a blue-tinged glaze. Each side of the bottle is
decorated with a coat-of-arms – a shield tierced in pale
(vertically subdivided into three sections); the first two
pales partitioned into four quarters: a tower on and

and an eagle on and ; the third pale with a tower
topped with a banner – surmounted by a crest in the
form of an eagle with outstretched wings surrounded by
a scrolling mantle above alternating blossoming peony
and fruit branches growing from rockwork, all framed by
a narrow blue band. The rounded shoulders are painted
with four small lobed-shaped panels enclosing a flower
spray reserved on a dense blue Y-diaper ground. The
short neck is decorated with two leafy stems and double
blue lines on the flared lip. The inner sides of the necks
are glazed. The flat base is unglazed.

See previous entry.