Page 37 - Bonhams Chinese Art London May 2013

The tall form of the vase is particularly suited
to traditional Chinese landscape scenes, with
mountains raised upon each other to suggest
recession into the distance, while the cylindrical
nature also allows the painter to explore
the concept of unscrolling landscapes. The
contrast of the vivid underglaze blue with the
white space reserved to suggest a river and
sky is particularly elegant on the present lot,
suggesting a calm enjoyment of nature.
Compare a related landscape vase, dated by
inscription to 1639, illustrated by J.Curtis,
Chinese Porcelains of the Seventeenth Century:
Landscapes, Scholar’s Motifs and Narratives,
New York, 1995, no.4.
The origin of the Dutch name for this
‘Transitional’ period style of cylindrical vase,
rolwagee, is shrouded in mystery. For an
interpretation which links the term to Dutch
merchants in Batavia in the mid 17th century,
see Colin Sheaf, Reflections on Transitional
blue and white, Arts of Asia magazine, where
the author proposes that the term is an early
mis-transcription of a much more logical term
for these ‘new’ sorts of vases whose principal
feature was that they were intended to be
rotated (or ‘rolled’) to read their decoration:
they would therefore quite logically have been
called by early Dutch merchants ‘rolvasen’.

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