Page 36 - Importan Chinese Art Christie's May 2018

made for the Yuan court. These included motifs such the confict between China and Tibet that had occurred
as the double vajra, which is seen on blue and white in Tang times. He therefore sent an envoy to the Karma-
porcelain of the period. Signifcantly, one of the weiqi pa abbots who controlled the Kham region and south-
boxes decorated with a horned, fve-clawed dragon, eastern Tibet asking those who had held ofice under the
excavated from the Yuan stratum at the Jingdezhen kilns, Yuan dynasty to come to Nanjing for re-investiture. The
has a double vajra on the top of its lid (illustrated in 景 Yongle emperor (1402-24) also sent a mission to Tibet
德鎮出土元明官窯瓷器 Jingdezhen chutu Yuan Ming guan the famous hierach Halima (De-bzin-gsegs-pa 1384-1415)
yao ciqi, Beijing, 1999, p. 68, no. 2, while a double vajra to come to Nanjing. Halima frst sent a tribute mission
can also be seen in the central medallion on the interior and then came to the Ming court himself in the spring
of a large blue and white bowl in the collection of the of 1407. The Yongle emperor also invited the hierarch
Idemitsu Museum, illustrated in Chinese Ceramics in of the Sa-skya-pa to the court at Nanjing in 1413 and
the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1987, colour plate 140. also tried to bring the famous leader of the Yellow Sect
The infuence of Lamaism on the porcelains made for (Tsong-kha-pa) to Nanjing in 1407. Other Tibetan leaders
the Yuan court, came not only from the interests of the were also brought to the Imperial court and all were
Mongols themselves, but from the Tibetan and Nepalese treated with great honour and showered with gifts, thus
craftsmen who held high positions at the imperial preventing any one sect from using Chinese patronage to
porcelain kiln at Jingdezhen. The famous Nepalese establish political hegemony.
craftsman Anige (1245-1306) was appointed head of the
The Yongle Emperor involved both Tibetan and Nepalese
imperial workshops in 1278.
craftsmen in the building of his new palace in Beijing.
In the Ming dynasty a number of the Chinese emperors He also involved them in the running of the imperial
of had a genuine interest in Lamaist Buddhism, but workshops, as had the previous Mongol dynasty. Their
they also patronized Lamaism as a way of maintaining infuence can clearly be seen in the works such as
control over both the Tibetans and the Mongols, through exquisite gilt-bronze Buddhist fgures in Tibeto-Chinese
the support of the powerful high lamas. When the frst style made during this reign. These pieces and those
Ming emperor, Hongwu (1368-98), came to the throne of the succeeding Xuande period (1426-35) were made
he was concerned that there should be no repetition of with reign marks and were for ritual use by the imperial

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