Page 41 - Ming Porcelain Auction March 14, 2017 Sotheby's, NYC

Fig. 2 Anonymous, Chrysanthemum Fig. 3 A blue and white ‘bird and
and butter y, Song dynasty, ink and ower’ moon ask, Ming dynasty,
color on silk, album leaf
© The Palace Museum, Beijing early 15th century. Copyright the
Sir Percival David Collection/© The
© Trustees of the British Museum

©

3 1996 62

musicians and dancers; see Krahl, op.cit., cat. no. 612; and Minji meihin zuroku, 25
[Illustrated catalogue of important Ming porcelains], vol. 1, Tokyo, 1977, pl. 14.
2002 1 87 88
This double-handled, oval-sectioned shape is probably derived from pottery 39
vessels that can ultimately be traced to the 18th Dynasty of Egypt (c. 1543–1292 16
BC), but continued to be popular there for centuries. Examples from 6th/7th
century Roman Egypt were known as St. Menas asks since, lled with oils 2007
or holy water, they served Christian pilgrims to the tomb of St. Menas near
Alexandria as souvenirs, which gave rise to the term ‘pilgrims’ asks’. It was 14 1976 13
around that time that such asks (bianhu) arrived in China, probably with
Sogdian merchants, and were copied in lead-glazed earthenware.

By the time the imperial potters at Jingdezhen became interested in this shape,
it retained only a basic relationship to the original form. The sophisticated,
faintly elliptical, circular outline of this ask and its bulging sides, which make
the softly rounded shape so endearing, are superbly counterbalanced by the
slender cylindrical neck and fanciful curled handles, which add a light and
elegant touch. It is a shape that clearly represented a challenge for potters
used to throwing vessels on the potter’s wheel. Di erent ways of forming it
were experimented with in the Yongle period. A similar piece, of slightly smaller
size than the present ask, made from two vertically joined halves – which
might seem the obvious way to fashion it – was abandoned at the kilns and
has been recovered from the waste heaps of the kiln sites; see Jingdezhen
chutu Ming chu guanyao ciqi/Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain Excavated
at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1996, cat. no. 62. Instead, a di erent
method of joining, which can be seen on the present ask, of two halves aligned
horizontally, became prevalent and was retained throughout the Ming dynasty.

A number of smaller (around 25 cm) Yongle moon asks of this form are
preserved, painted with fruit or ower scrolls encircling the whole body, which
no longer evoke fan paintings. Even such examples have very rarely been o ered
at auction and hardly remain in private hands. Two asks decorated with a

owering camellia scroll are in the Palace Museum, Beijing, published in Geng