Page 292 - Christies Fine Chinese Works of Art March 2016 New York
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1574 A similar vessel, found in West Sumatra, and now in the Pukat Museum,
Jakarata, is illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World’s Great Collections,
AN UNUSUAL BLUE AND WHITE CRESCENT-SHAPED FLASK Tokyo, 1982, col. pl. 31. Another is illustrated by C.J.A. Jorge in Chinese
LATE MING DYNASTY, LATE 16TH CENTURY Ceramics in the Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: The Ming and
Qing Dynasties, Amsterdam, 1997, p. 36, no. 10, where the author refers to
The hollow vessel is potted in the shape of a crescent raised on four the shape as that of a leather water bag, and notes that as Islam became
low ruyi supports and molded on the sides with two curved ‘seams’ dominant in Java, the crescent shape may have appealed to Islamic buyers
that border the scroll decoration on the lower body and the clouds throughout Indonesia. Others have been published by R. H. Pinder-Wilson
on the upper body that surround a diaper-flled quatrefoil collar at and M. Tregear in ‘Two Drinking Flasks from Asia’, Oriental Art, Winter 1970,
the base of the tall, waisted neck encircled by a bow-string band that pp. 339-40, pls. 6 and 7, in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and pl. 8, from
separates two bands of decoration below the compressed, bulbous the Percival David Collection; and by S. T. Yeo and J. Martin in Chinese Blue
mouth decorated with pendent leaf tips. Each pointed end is capped and White Ceramics, Singapore, 1978, p. 28. See, also, the two fasks sold
by a fower-form fnial, and a slender, tubular spout issues from the at Sotheby’s, one in London, 5 October 2011, lot 349, the other in New York,
front of the vessel. 15-16 September 2015, lot 272.
8√ in. (22.5 cm.) long, box The shape is also related to the Islamic metal kashkul, or beggar’s bowl,
which has a curved, boat shape that rises to a decorative terminal at each
$20,000-30,000 end, and is decorated around the sides. It is possible, that this metal shape
was also derived from the leather fask shape. For an example of such a
Flasks of this rare type, which were apparently made for the Islamic market, metal vessel, see the Timurid tinned-copper kashkul, dated 15th century, sold
have mostly been found in Indonesia. They are thought to have been inspired at Christie’s London, 6 October 2011, lot 115.
by leather fask prototypes, the raised borders imitating the seams of the
leather fasks, and the crescent shape possibly a reference to the Islamic 晚明十六世紀 外銷青花卷雲紋新月形扁壺
symbol of the crescent moon.
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