Page 39 - Ming Porcelain Auction March 14, 2017 Sotheby's, NYC

Fig. 1 Anonymous, Peach ower,
Song dynasty, ink and color on silk,
album leaf
© The Palace Museum, Beijing

©

1

owers depicted as detached sprays oating in mid-air or as continuous scrolls. Chinese Ceramics
The painterly aspect of the present ower motifs is further emphasized by the
indication of uneven ground from which the owers grow, evoking real plants in in the Topkapi Saray Museum Istanbul
a garden setting. In their naturalistic depiction, the two scenes are reminiscent
of the treatment of plants in Chinese paintings. Nearly circular fan paintings with John Ayers 1986 2
such studies of single owering plants are well known from the Song dynasty
(960-1279) and continued to be popular into the Ming (1368-1644). Compare, 423 613
for example, two anonymous Song fan paintings, one depicting a branch of
double- owering peach, the other chrysanthemums with a butter y hovering Ceramic Masterpieces of the Orient
above, both preserved in the Palace Museum, Beijing, and illustrated in Zhonghua from the Topkapi Palace Turkey
wuqian nian wenwu jikan. Song hua bian/“Five Thousand Years of Chinese Art”
Series. Sung Painting , part IV, Taipei, 1986, pls 69 and 90 ( gs 1 and 2). 1990
18
Only one companion piece exists of the same shape, size and design, the
celebrated moon ask tted with an Ottoman silver-gilt rim mount and 8 1995 2007
screw cap, preserved in the Ottoman royal collection in the Topkapi Saray 43
Museum, Istanbul, Turkey. That ask has been illustrated over and over and
has repeatedly featured on book covers and dust jackets. It was chosen, for 15 3
example, for the dust jacket of the catalogue raisonné of the Museum’s Chinese
ceramics, which are rich in ne early Ming blue-and-white wares, see Regina
Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, ed. John Ayers,
London, 1986, vol. 2, where it is also illustrated in color, p. 423 and discussed
as cat. no. 613, and where further publications are listed. It graces the cover of
the exhibition catalogue Ceramic Masterpieces of the Orient from the Topkapi
Palace, Turkey, Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo, 1990, with both sides illustrated
again, cat. no. 18; as well as the dust jacket of Nakazawa Fujio and Hasegawa
Shoko, Chūgoku no tōji/Chinese Ceramics, vol. 8, Gen Min no seika/Blue-and-