Page 61 - Tianminlou Hong Kong Sotheby's April 3 2019

Vigorously painted in vibrant shades of blue, this elegantly Similar bowls, with a lotus design, are portrayed on the
shaped bowl carries the essence of Xuande period Guwan tu (‘Scroll of antiquities’) made during the reign of
aesthetics. Bold, yet finely detailed, the remarkable the Yongzheng Emperor (r. 1723-35) and dated equivalent
decoration splendidly contrasts with the perfect, lustrous to 1728. The scroll, depicting various artworks in the
glaze. Using the xieyi (‘sketching thoughts’) style of imperial collection, is now in the Percival David Foundation
painting, the artist let his brush freely run over the bowl’s in London.
surface; the naturalistic blooms seem to surge from their Two bowls identical to the present piece are in the National
background, as if in relief.
Palace Museum in Taipei and in the Palace Museum in
This exceptional quality of painting, characteristic of the Beijing, one included in the exhibition catalogue Mingdai
best of the Xuande period, was later emulated, but never Xuande guanyao jingcui tezhan tulu/Catalogue of the
equalled. Post-Xuande depictions of similar flower scrolls Special Exhibition of Selected Hsüan-te Imperial Porcelains
became more stylized and lost the intensity of the blue. of the Ming Dynasty, National Palace Museum, Taipei,
1998, cat. no. 135, together with a slightly smaller bowl
The flowers depicted around this bowl each represent
different times of the year and are synonymous with painted with lotus scrolls on the exterior, cat. no. 134; the
connotations of abundance and prosperity. Although flower other, somewhat smaller, illustrated in Geng Baochang,
scrolls as a decorative scheme on ceramics have been Gugong Bowuyuan cang Ming chu Qinghua ci [Early Ming
popular since the Song dynasty (960-1279), this particular blue-and-white porcelain in the Palace Museum], Beijing,
combination of lotus, peony, pomegranate, camellia and 2002, vol. 2, pl. 149, together with an example with lotus
chrysanthemum appears to have been an invention of scroll, pl. 148.
the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368) potter. The compositional Another bowl is in the Ardabil Shrine in Teheran, illustrated
arrangement of the various flowers may have been in John Alexander Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the
borrowed from Middle Eastern textiles and metalwork. Ardebil Shrine, Smithsonian Institution, The Freer Gallery
While the representation of different flowers is sometimes of Art, Washington, 1956, pl. 47, no. 29.321 and another is
stylized, on the present piece they have been rendered in a in the Indianapolis Museum of Art, included in Suzanne G.
fairly naturalistic way. Valenstein, Ming Porcelains. A Retrospective, New York,
China House Gallery. China Institute in America, New York,
The design of these bowls was inspired by Hongwu and
Yongle examples. Two Hongwu pieces, painted with a 1970, cat. no. 6.
somewhat simpler flower scroll between key-fret borders, Two similar bowls were sold in our London rooms, one
one in blue and white, excavated at Dongmentou, Zhushan, from the Eumorfopoulos collection on 29th May 1940, lot
was included in the exhibition Imperial Hongwu and Yongle 209; the other from the collection of J.F.M. Braithwaite on
Porcelain Excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, 5th July 1977, lot 204 and again in these rooms on 30th
Taipei, 1996, cat. no. 14; the other in underglaze red in the April 1991, lot 12. Another from the collection of Kochukyo
Palace Museum in Beijing is illustrated in The Complete Co., Tokyo was also sold in these rooms on 8th October
Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Blue and 2014, lot 3694.
White Porcelain with Underglazed Red (I), Shanghai, Unmarked bowls of this type, painted with lotus on the
2000, pl. 222. A larger bowl, excavated from the late outside, were also manufactured during the Xuande period,
Yongle stratum of the waste heaps of the imperial kilns one example in the National Palace Museum in Taipei
at Jingdezhen, was included in the exhibition catalogue was included in the Museum’s exhibition Mingdai chunian
Imperial Porcelain of the Yongle and Xuande Periods ciqi tezhan mulu [Catalogue of the special exhibition of
Excavated from the Site of the Ming Imperial Factory at early Ming period porcelain], Taipei, 1982, cat. no. 27, and
Jingdezhen, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1989, another is illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics
cat. no. 44.
from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994, vol. 2, no.
668.