Page 72 - Ming Porcelain Auction March 14, 2017 Sotheby's, NYC

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

1 2004 73

Washers of the present design, however, with dragon roundels, are extremely 74
rare. No washer of this design appears to be preserved in the National Palace
Museum, nor to remain in the Palace Museum, Beijing. A smaller brush washer Catalogue of the
of this design (of 18.5 cm) was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 27th October 1992,
lot 35; another at Hanhai, Beijing, 30th June 1996, lot 990; and a fragmentary Severance and Greta Millikin Collection
example, excavated from the waste heaps of the Ming imperial kilns was
included in the exhibition Jingdezhen chutu Ming Xuande guanyao ciqi/Xuande 1990 27
Imperial Porcelain excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1998,
cat. no.19-1 1989 11 14

A washer of this design in the Capital Museum, Beijing, lacking the reign mark 18 1997 11 5 1351
and attributed to the Yongle period (1403-1424), is illustrated in Beijing wenwu
jingcui daxi. Taoci juan/Gems of Beijing Cultural Relics Series. Pottery and 2003 220
Porcelain, Beijing, 2004, pls 73 and 74; and unmarked washers of this form, with
dragon roundels around the outside, exist also with an additional dragon painted 1961 66 105f
on the base, matching that on the interior; see an example in the Cleveland 1998 182 183
Museum of Art illustrated in the Catalogue of the Severance and Greta Millikin
Collection, Cleveland, 1990, pl. 27; and another, sold in our Hong Kong rooms,
14th November 1989, lot 18, and again, 5th November 1997, lot 1351, illustrated in
Sotheby’s. Thirty Years in Hong Kong, op.cit., pl. 220.

More common are brush washers of this form, of Xuande mark and period, with
a similar dragon among clouds inside, but the dragons outside con ned within
quatrefoil panels: Four such pieces are listed in the inventory of the holdings of
the National Palace Museum Gugong ciqi lu [Record of porcelains from the Old