Page 38 - Ming Porcelain Auction March 14, 2017 Sotheby's, NYC

36 SOTHEBY’S NEW YORK 14 MARCH 2017 MING: THE INTERVENTION OF IMPERIAL TASTE

copied, which clearly increased their value and their demand. Middle Eastern 4
copies of Yongle designs, which are not uncommon, generally date from a least
a century later, since models were not easily available to imitate.

The distribution of Yongle porcelains in the Yongle reign was probably largely
due to the ambitious o cial maritime expeditions of the eunuch, Admiral Zheng
He, who during the Yongle and early Xuande (1426-1435) periods undertook
seven gigantic voyages westward, touching down at all important ports in South
East and South Asia, along the Persian Gulf, on the Arabian Peninsula, along
the Red Sea and almost halfway down the east coast of Africa. Besides silks,
porcelains were the preferred Chinese goods abroad, and were exchanged
against rare animals, medicinal and food plants, pearls, precious stones, ivory,
tortoise shell, rhinoceros horn, incense and other luxury goods. Porcelains
such as this moon ask, which is quintessentially Chinese in style and would
immediately have been recognized as such in the Middle East, were so highly
valued probably exactly because of their perceived exotic air.

In China, the somewhat elliptical sides of these moon asks were either
recognized – or perhaps specially fashioned – to echo the shape of Chinese
fans that traditionally served Chinese painters as canvases for nature studies.
It is therefore not surprising that such subjects came to mind to Jingdezhen’s
porcelain painters, when they approached these asks.

The owers depicted on the front and reverse of this ask, carnations and
asters, are otherwise hardly seen on Chinese porcelain, and the romantic
manner in which they are here represented is extremely rare among plant
designs on Chinese porcelain, which generally are stylized into patterns, with

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