Page 290 - Christies Fine Chinese Works of Art March 2016 New York

VARIOUS PROPERTIES

1573
A RARE BLUE AND WHITE MOON FLASK, BIANHU

MING DYNASTY, LATE 15TH-EARLY 16TH CENTURY

The fattened spherical body is raised on a quatrefoil foot and is decorated on each side with a
central recess enclosing a fower head surrounded by two pairs of lions playing amidst fames,
babao and the ribbons trailing from two further fower heads, all within a line border and
an outer feld of peony scroll. The narrow sides are decorated with a band of diaper pattern
below the loop handles that fank the waisted lower section of the neck encircled by upright
leaves below an encircling ridge and the tapering upper section decorated with a band of tall
petal lappets and narrow bands of overlapping petals and key fret.
13æ in. (35 cm.) high, Japanese wood box

$60,000-80,000

What makes this bianhu and others like it unusual is the addition of a tall, tapering upper neck to a
conventional moon fask shape. A similar, but incomplete, fask of this unusual shape is illustrated by
R. Krahl and J. Ayers in Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, vol. II, Yuan and Ming
Dynasty Porcelains, London, 1986, p. 543, no. 657, where one can see that the foot and top of the neck
are missing. The decoration is not identical, but is similarly arranged, and the painting style is very
similar. This is also true of a complete example illustrated by J. A. Pope in Chinese Porcelains from the
Ardebil Shrine, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, 1956, pl. 69, no. 29.459. On this vase the decoration
on the neck is identical to that seen on the present moon fask, but has two bosses that protrude from
the narrow sides of the body. This fask is also illustrated by T. Misugi, Chinese Porcelain Collections
in the Near East, Topkapi and Ardebil, vol. 3, The Ardebil Shrine Collection, 1981 rev. ed., Hong Kong, p.
178, A. 101, where it is also illustrated with two other fasks of this type, both missing the upper section
of the neck, and both without bosses. Another incomplete moon fask of similar shape is illustrated
by J. Harrison Hall in Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, pp. 179-80, no. 7:5, which
is missing most of the upper neck. It, too, has a quatrefoil foot and a recessed medallion on each side,
but like the vase in the Ardebil Shrine, it has raised bosses on the narrow sides. The author relates this
shape to Islamic metalwork prototypes. Based on the published examples, none of the fasks of this type
have the same decoration on the body, but it is always densely arranged and painted in a dark cobalt
blue, which according to Harrison-Hall is typical of Hongzhi-period wares of this type.
明十五世紀末/十六世紀初 青花開光花卉八寳獅紋扁壺

288