Page 136 - Bonhams Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Nov 2014 Hong Kong

Images courtesy of the Palace Museum, Beijing
Yoneo Sakai (1900-1978) was one of Japan’s most highly respected
journalists and foreign correspondents. Born in Saga prefecture, he
studied literature at Kansai Gakuin and Meiji Gakuin, and joined the
Kokusai joho sha as an editor of motion pictures and drama (eiga
to engi). He moved to San Francisco in 1926 where he contributed
to Japanese language newspapers in San Francisco, Los Angeles
and New York. From 1931 he worked as a foreign correspondent for
Asahi shimbun, covering the civil war in Spain in 1937, and traveling
to Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Italy, Germany, Palestine and China
from 1937 to 1939. He was interned at the Granada Relocation
Center during World War II, and taught Japanese at the University of
Colorado until 1948. In 1949 he and his family moved to Washington
D.C., where he resumed his journalism career, working as a foreign
correspondent for major newspapers, wire services and magazines
in Japan during the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson
administrations until his death in 1978. He hosted a radio show,
America dayori (News from America), where he interviewed Presidents
Kennedy, Johnson, and Ernest Hemingway, and covered the Vietnam
war during the Johnson and early Nixon administrations. He became a
U.S. citizen in 1956.
Information courtesy of the UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library,
Department of Special Collections.
This magnificent garlic-head vase is extraordinarily rare and the only
other known example is in the Palace Museum, Beijing from the Qing
Court Collection: see a very similar blue and white garlic-mouth vase,
Yongzheng seal mark and of the period, illustrated in The Complete
Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Blue and White
Porcelain with Underglazed Red (III), Beijing, 2010, pl.93. The Qing
Court Collection vase and the present lot demonstrate slight variations ‘baroque like’ border around the shoulders of alternating circular and
in the distinctive descending lappet band below the shoulder and in
the choice of moulded decoration in the key-fret band below the neck.
This form is further recorded by Geng Baochang in Ming Qing ciqi
jianding, Hong Kong, 1993, p.236, fig.12.
This form and design continued onto the Qianlong period; compare a
similar blue and white garlic-mouth vase, Qianlong seal mark and of
the period, from the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated ibid., pl.121. complex form of imposing proportions.
134 | Bonhams
The present vase arguably encapsulates the very finest of imperial
Yongzheng period porcelain production painted in underglaze blue
and white. The relatively short Yongzheng period was a peak of
innovation in form and refinement in design and execution. The
garlic-mouth section of the vase is clearly inspired by early Ming
dynasty blue and white moonflasks, bianhu of the Yongle and Xuande
periods; the high-walled body is similar in shape to fishbowls; the
wide shoulders would have been a necessity in combining the two
former features; altogether accomplishing a striking and elegant form,
creating a decorative canvas both around the imposing body, the wide
shoulders and neck. The distinctiveness of the three main sections
of the vessel, i.e. body, shoulders and neck, has been emphasised
by the two moulded borders portioning the parts and decorative
schemes, between the body and shoulders and the shoulders and
neck, with the additional result of creating a further layer of three-
dimensionality in the vessel.
The importance of the vase and intricate design is illustrated in the
unusually large number of different borders – 11 different bands
(excluding the double lines). These like the garlic-head form, are
inspired by Yuan and early Ming dynasty designs: the crashing waves
can be seen on Yuan guan jars and Yongle flasks (showing related
whirl designs), see The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace
Museum: Blue and White Porcelain with Underglaze Red (I), Beijing,
2010, pls.5 (Yuan guan), 36 (Yongle flask); for a related composite
floral scroll, painted with 12 main blooms, see ibid., pl.5 (Yongle flask);
compare related floral scrolls below the rim of a blue and white zun,
Yongle, illustrated ibid., pl.46; and a lotus scroll on the exterior of a
Yongle shallow bowl, ibid., pl.55; see also the double-lined lobed
lappets, illustrated ibid., pl.94 on a Xuande flask. However, the almost
lobed cartouches would appear to be a distinct innovation of the
Yongzheng period and arguably a unique feature exclusive to this type
of vase. The decorative triumph of the vase and its design lies not only
in the exceptional quality of the painting and extravagant design, but
also in the ‘negative space’, allowing a breathing space to admire the
various borders and importantly the lustrous glaze over the porcelain
body, underlining the pure feat of successful firing of what is a highly