Page 30 - Sotheby's Part II Collection of Sir Joeseph Hotung Collection CHINESE ART , Oct. 9, 2022

fig. 2
A blue and white 'fish' jar, Yuan dynasty © Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Image Archives / DNPartcom
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Grouped in two pairs swimming towards each other, the fishes here Tsugio, Sekai tōji zenshū/Ceramic Art of the World, vol. 13: Ryō,
depict a mandarin fish, easy to recognize by its strongly patterned – Kin, Gen/Liao, Chin and Yüan Dynasties, Tokyo, 1981, pl. 56), the
in real life very colourful – skin and round tail fin and three different present jar is closest overall to a jar with cut-down neck from the
fish of the carp family. The carp at the end of Zhou’s handscroll is collection of Sir Harry Garner, now in the Fuji Art Museum, Tokyo,
depicted in the leaping pose, also seen on this jar, which evokes the included in the Mostra d’Arte Cinese/Exhibition of Chinese Art,
carp turning into a dragon and for China’s scholars embodied the Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 1954, cat. no. 613 (fig. 2); and one in the
student succeeding at the official examinations that opened the path Palace Museum, Beijing, with a lotus scroll around the shoulder, in
to a government career. If the ink paintings of this theme may have Gugong Bowuyuan cang wenwu zhenpin quanji. Qinghua youlihong/
served the painters as models for the fish, they would not have found The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Blue
samples of the large clumps of lotus there, as water plants on these and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red, Shanghai, 2000, vol. 1,
fish paintings are clearly subordinate to the main subject, the fish. no. 5 (fig. 3). In its painting style it is also very similar to two jars that
On this jar, the lotus plants are so magnificently painted that they are are lacking the borders above and below the pond scene, one in
at least as important for the complete picture as the fishes between the Brooklyn Museum (Sherman E. Lee and Wai-kam Ho, Chinese
them. Naturalistically rendered, we see them in different stages of Art under the Mongols: The Yüan Dynasty, 1279–1368, Cleveland
maturation and decay, with buds turning to fully opened blooms Museum of Art, Cleveland, 1968, no. 155) and one exhibited at
and eventually to pods, and fresh curly leaves juxtaposed with wilting Eskenazi’s (Two Rare Chinese Porcelain Fish Jars of the 14th and
and shrivelled ones with frilly edges, suspended on broken stems. 16th Centuries, Eskenazi, London, 2002, no. 1).
The painter went to great lengths to employ varying tones of cobalt
blue like different tones of black ink would be used in paintings on Fragments of fish jars have been discovered at the Luomaqiao kiln
paper or silk. The lively scene, with insects hovering above, is in fact a sites of Jingdezhen, see Weng Yanjun and Li Baoping, New Finds
daring composition, basically showing a vertical cross section through of Yuan Dynasty Blue-and-White Porcelain from the Luomaqiao Kiln
a body of water and the air above it, combining fauna and flora from Site, Jingdezhen: An Archaeological Approach, London, 2021, pl. 35,
below and above the water level. figs 4 and 5.
Quite a number of Yuan fish jars are preserved, but they vary The power of the design proved irresistible even a century later,
greatly in quality. The present piece appears to be the tallest and is when potters working at the imperial kilns for the Xuande Emperor
among the best painted. While the jar in the Museum of Oriental (1426-35) copied it, who otherwise rarely took Yuan designs as
Ceramics, Osaka, formerly in the Ataka collection, is arguably models. It can be seen quite similarly interpreted, for example, on a
the most dramatic, with its overly large fish – three singles and a deep, lobed bowl of Xuande mark and period, sold in these rooms,
pair – nearly filling out the full height of the design band (Mikami 5th April 2017, lot 101 (fig. 4).

58 I FOR COMPLETE CATALOGUING ༉းྡ፽ʫ࢙ሗᓭᚎ SOTHEBYS.COM/HK1292 THE PERSONAL COLLECTION OF THE LATE SIR JOSEPH HOTUNG I 59