Page 230 - Bonhams Fine Chinese Art Nov 2013 London

The Property of a Lady 女士藏品
215
A wucai barrel-shaped chess box and cover
Wanli six-character mark and of the period
Vividly painted in bright underglaze blue and enamelled in green,
yellow and iron-red with a continuous scene of four mythical beasts
with wild manes and tails issuing fire scrolls in a landscape of pines
and rockwork, between a band of floral scroll at the foot and a
geometric four-petalled floral band at the rim, the cover with a blue
qilin, a green mythical beast and an elephant outlined in iron-red
prancing in a pine grove.
14.5cm (5¾in) diam. (2).
£4,000 - 6,000
HK$50,000 - 75,000 CNY39,000 - 59,000

明萬曆 五彩瑞獸紋鼓式蓋罐 青花「大明萬曆年製」楷書款
Provenance: an English private collection
來源：英國私人收藏

Jars of this barrel-shaped form, complete with their original covers, An underglaze blue example, of the same form to the present
and painted with dragons in wucai and underglaze blue decoration example, from the C.P. Lin Collection is illustrated by R.E.Scott,
are extremely rare. Elegant Form and Harmonious Decoration: Four Dynasties of
A very similar box and cover in the Shanghai Museum is illustrated in Jingdezhen Porcelain, London, 1992, Catalogue no. 90.
Chugoku Toji Zenshu, Vol.21, Kyoto, 1981, Catalogue no.41. Another A Wanli mark and period wucai octafoil box and cover painted with
wucai box of this type, but without its cover, in the Metropolitan dragons and phoenix, from the Robert Chang collection, was sold
Museum, New York is illustrated by S.G. Valenstein, The Herzman at Christie’s Hong Kong, 28 November 2006, lot 1315. A box of
Collection of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1992, Catalogue no.85. the same form as the present example, but painted with Daoist
Other Wanli period chess boxes and boxes, with variations in the immortals, was sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 13 November 1990,
shape and decoration are also known. Compare a wucai barrel- lot 149; and another painted with pairs of bixie and qilin was sold at
shaped box and cover in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated in Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 27 April 2003, lot 233. A similar wucai Wanli
Zhongguo meishu quanji: Gongyi Meishu Zhan 3 Taoci, Shanghai, mark chess box was also sold in Bonhams Hong Kong, 21 May
1993, fig.128. 2009, lot 1150.

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