Page 48 - Chinese Works of Art Chritie's Mar. 22-23 2018

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A RARE WUCAI ‘PHOENIX’ DOUBLE-GOURD-FORM WALL VASE A very similar wall vase, but with the lotus fower and leaf on the reverse
WANLI SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE WITHIN A decorated in red and green enamels rather than in underglaze blue, from the
DOUBLE RECTANGLE AND OF THE PERIOD (1573-1619) Tsui Art Foundation, is illustrated in Joined Colors: Decoration and Meaning
in Chinese Porcelain: Ceramics from Collectors in the Min Chiu Society, Hong
The lower body is decorated with two phoenixes confronted above blue rocks
Kong, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.,
amidst fowering peony within a shaped panel below an upper panel of a bird
1993, p. 106, no. 34, and was later sold at Sotheby’s London, 12 July 2006,
perched on a rock in the midst of further peonies and birds in fight beneath
lot 68. Another closely related example, with the pair of phoenixes on the
trailing clouds. The upper body is decorated with two further phoenixes
upper bulb facing in opposite directions, from the Mr. and Mrs. Otto Doering
in fight amidst ruyi-shaped clouds between bands of ruyi heads at the
Collection, was sold at Christie’s New York, 9 November 1978, lot 130, and
lingzhi-scroll-painted waist below and a band of leaf tips pendent from the
is illustrated by Anthony du Boulay, Christie’s Pictorial History of Chinese
mouth rim above. The fat back is outlined in underglaze blue and has a deep
Ceramics, Oxford, 1984, p. 171, no. 3. Another nearly identical wall vase
rectangular opening for hanging purposes below the mark, which is painted
from The Le Cong Tang Collection was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 27
in underglaze blue within a double rectangle raised on a lotus stem and
November 2017, lot 8008.
capped by a lotus leaf.
15æ in. (40 cm.) high, cloth box There is another closely related group of wall vases painted with cockerels on
the lower bulb. One such example in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated
$120,000-180,000 in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum - 38 - Porcelains
in Polychrome and Contrasting Colours, p. 33, pl. 30. A second is illustrated
in Porcelains from the Tianjin Municipal Museum, Hong Kong, 1993, pl. 120; a
third in the Baur Collection, is published by J. Ayers, The Baur Collection, vol. 2,
Geneva, 1969, pl. A 201; a further example in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen
Dresden, is illustrated by E. Zimmerman, Chinesisches Porzellan, Leipzig, 1923,
pl. 66; and a ffth was sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 5 October 2011, lot 1901.
明萬曆 五彩鳳紋葫蘆壁瓶 雙方框六字楷書款

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