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ELEGANCE OF CHENGHUA IMPERIAL
 PORCELAIN PAINTING


 Dragons, as mythical animals, leave artists in theory total   mature style of decoration and the highest quality, by
 freedom of interpretation, but in China, their physique has   far. The square reign mark is found on the most exquisite
 always been quite strictly defined. The various species that   Chenghua pieces, particularly on doucai porcelains and
 exist, are clearly differentiated and the present creatures,   copies of Song Ru and guan wares.
 with only two legs, a small body and a dramatic scrolling   Only two complete companion pieces to the present bowl
 tail, are kui (or xiangcao, ‘sweet grass’) dragons. Kui are the   appear to be recorded, one in the Palace Museum, Taipei,
 dragons associated with Tibetan Buddhist contexts and are   illustrated in Chenghua ciqi tezhan tulu/Catalogue of the
 depicted in Buddhist architecture and on objects used in   Special Exhibition of Ch’eng-hua Porcelain Ware, 1465-
 Buddhist ceremonies. They have developed from the Indian   1487, Palace Museum, Taipei, 2003, no. 18; the other in
 makara, a water-guardian spirit used particularly as an   the Shanghai Museum, published in Lu Minghua, Shanghai
 architectural element to protect gateways. In Tibet, makaras   Bowuguan zangpin yanjiu daxi/Studies of the Shanghai
 formed an integral part of arch-like structures – derived   Museum Collections : A Series of Monographs. Mingdai
 from the Indian torana gateways – that were used to frame   guanyao ciqi [Ming imperial porcelain], Shanghai, 2007,
 Buddhist figures both in three- and two-dimensional images.  no. 3-60. A partially preserved bowl, reconstructed from
 As Tibetan Buddhist iconography became influential in the   sherds recovered from the waste heaps of the imperial kilns
 Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), such gateways incorporating a   at Jingdezhen, is illustrated in Mingdai Chenghua yuyao ciqi,
 pair of makaras were in China adopted for religious buildings.   op.cit., vol. 1, no. 56; see also Julian Thompson, ‘Towards
 An early example is the Cloud Terrace on the Juyongguan   a Catalogue Raisonné of Chenghua Porcelain’, in Regina
 mountain pass of the Great Wall, outside Beijing. This   Krahl, ed., The Emperor’s broken china. Reconstructing
 platform, which originally supported three white dagobas   Chenghua porcelain, London, 1995, p. 118, where this pattern
 and was completed in 1345, is carved with Tibetan Buddhist   is recorded as B10.
 imagery and inscribed with sutra texts. The arch-shaped   In his discussion of the Shanghai companion bowl, Lu
 reliefs around its passageway show the classic composition   Minghua (op.cit., p. 137) has remarked upon the exquisite
 that is also seen in the Ming period: a garuda between two   painting manner here adopted. With outlines drawn with a
 spirit figures, or apsaras, at the top, a pair of makaras with   very fine brush, and filled in with a wide range of different
 curling tails at the shoulders, and a sequence of animals,   tones of cobalt blue, the painting manner achieves a new
 placed above each other, along the jambs of the arch.  level of excellence. Lu characterizes this painting style
 The Chenghua Emperor was a fervent sponsor of Buddhist   with the term fenshui, which can perhaps be translated as
 (as well as Daoist) causes, who himself dressed as a monk   ‘diluting with water’, and describes washes of different,
 during Buddhist ceremonies held at court. In the second year   carefully distinguished cobalt-blue tints, created by mixing
 of his reign, he agreed to have a new temple built, Cirensi,   the pigment with different amounts of water. Rather than
 at the site of the Baoguosi in Beijing, where his mother’s   being due to the haphazard variation in tone that occurs
 younger brother (or cousin, according to some reports) had   naturally when painting in ink – or here cobalt – of only
 been made abbot. A commemorative text that the Emperor   one tone, several different pigment solutions were here
 wrote on the construction of this temple, preserved on a   methodically employed.
 stone stele that still stands in the temple grounds, attests to   How these Chenghua imperial pieces, inscribed with the
 his personal attention to this project.  reign mark, stand out in quality becomes very clear when
 Another, more important temple structure erected under   comparing them with roughly contemporary porcelains
 the Chenghua Emperor, in 1473, is the Zhenjuesi (‘Temple   with kui dragons, but unmarked: Related, but much less
 of True Awakening’), better known as Wutasi (‘Five Pagoda   carefully painted kui dragons appear on the outside of an
 Temple’), built in the Tibetan style with five pagodas on   unmarked dish in the Palace Museum, Beijing, as well as on
 top of a cubical base. The main entrance to the building is   a fragmentary counterpart excavated at Jingdezhen, both
 surrounded by an arch of the same composition as that on   decorated with a double Vajra in the centre and attributed to
 Juyongguan, with two makara dragons on either side at the   the Chenghua reign, illustrated in Mingdai Chenghua yuyao
 top (fig. 1).  ciqi. Jingdezhen yuyao yizhi chutu yu Gugong Bowuyuan cang
 According to Fang Chaoying, “More Buddhist temples seem   chuanshi ciqi duibi /Imperial Porcelains from the Reign of
 to have been built or rebuilt in Peking during the Ch’eng-hua   Chenghua in the Ming Dynasty. A Comparison of Porcelains
 and Wan-li reigns than in other periods of the Ming dynasty.”   from the Imperial Kiln Site at Jingdezhen and the Imperial
 (L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds, Dictionary   Collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, 2016, vol. 1, nos 25
 of Ming Biography 1368 – 1644, New York and London:   and 45; another variant of the kui dragon, with paws instead
 Columbia University Press, 1976, vol. 1, p. 303). Buddhist   of claws, also not comparable in its painting style, appears
 motifs such as the Eight Buddhist Emblems, double Vajra   in the centre and around the outside of a stem bowl in the
 and inscriptions in the Tibetan script, are well known on   Palace Museum, Beijing, also unmarked and attributed to the
 Chenghua imperial porcelains and their appearance seems   Chenghua reign, ibid., no. 82.
 to have increased in the later years of the reign, but this   On porcelain, kui dragons are known at least since the Yongle
 makara-style dragon with a lotus spray in its mouth was very   period, as seen on a large jar sold in these rooms, 29th
 rarely depicted. Liu Xinyuan, who excavated the Chenghua   April 2022, lot 5, from the collection of Joseph Lau, and on
 remains at the imperial kiln site, suggested that “objects   another, of Xuande mark and period, sold 2nd October 2017,
 decorated with religious motifs were made in and after the   lot 101. In both cases, the dragons have more distinctive
 17th year of the Chenghua reign (1481), when the court was   wings – which on the present bowl are reduced to small curls
 consumed with religious activities” (A Legacy of Chenghua:   – and the Xuande version comes with paws. Kui dragons with
 Imperial Porcelain of the Chenghua Reign Excavated from   prominent wings and scaly fish tails appear quite frequently
 Zhushan, Jingdezhen, Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1993,   on Xuande and Interregnum period porcelains, where they
 p. 29 Chinese, p. 70 English).  are often included among groups of fanciful sea creatures,
 A date in the later years of the Chenghua period is also   which include winged horses, elephants, hares and fish, so
 suggested by this bowl’s square reign mark. The porcelain   called because they are depicted among waves, in spite
 production of the Chenghua reign can be divided into three   of their wings. They are all very different from the elegant
 periods, of which the last is characterized by the most   creatures depicted on the present bowl.
 54  FOR COMPLETE CATALOGUING  詳盡圖錄內容請瀏覽  SOTHEBYS.COM/HK1526                                                55
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