Page 80 - 2019 October Important Chinese Art Sotheby's Hong Kong

fig. 1
Blue and white ‘Indian lotus’ fruit bowl, mark and period of Xuande
formerly in the Tianminlou collection
Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 3rd April 2019, lot 7
圖一
明宣德 青花纏枝番蓮大盌 《大明宣德年製》款
天民樓舊藏
香港蘇富比2019年4月3日，編號7

On account of the bowl’s solid potting, several ideas have Chinese Ceramics. Selected articles from Orientations 1982-
been put forward regarding its use. Dice playing has been 1998, Hong Kong, 1999, pp. 102-115, p. 106.
suggested since some bowls show unusual wear on the An identical bowl is in the National Palace Museum in
interior. The bowl’s thick walls, plain white inside, would have Taipei, included in the Museum’s exhibition Mingdai Xuande
been a perfect battleground for cricket fighting, traditionally guanyao jingcui tezhan tulu/ Catalogue of the Special
a popular pastime in China. They may also have served Exhibition of Selected Hsüan-te Imperial Porcelains of the
as brush washers or as fruit bowls or simply have been Ming Dynasty, Taipei, 1998, cat. no. 43; another bowl is
multifunctional.
in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, illustrated in Stuart
Bowls of this shape were popular in their time and were Young, ‘An Analysis of Chinese Blue and White’, Oriental Art,
manufactured with a variety of designs, including composite Summer 1956, New Series volume II, number 2, pl. 47, fig. 11,
flower scrolls, fruiting sprigs, lingzhi, lotus with Buddhist no. 36; a third example from the collection of C.T. Loo was
emblems and the ‘three friends of winter’. Although mostly included in the exhibition Ming Blue-and-White, Philadelphia
known from the Xuande period, they were already produced Museum Bulletin, 1949, no. 64, probably the same bowl
earlier, in the Yongle period. For a precursor of this type which was included in Chinese Ceramics from the Prehistoric
of bowl, compare an unmarked example painted with a Period through Ch’ien Lung’, Los Angeles Museum, Los
beautiful rose design, illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Angeles, 1952, no. 281; and a fourth piece is illustrated in
Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994- Sekai tōji zenshū: Ceramic Art of the World, vol. 14: Ming
2010, vol. 4, no. 1654. Dynasty, Tokyo, 1976, pl. 150. At auction, a bowl from the
collection of J.M. Hu, was sold in our New York rooms, 4th
While blue-and-white porcelain production was abundant,
quality control was extremely strict. Tons of shards of of June 1985, lot 6; another was sold in these rooms, 14th
November 1989, lot 19; a third example from the Tianminlou
smashed pieces, deemed unsatisfactory, have been collection was recently sold in these rooms, 3rd April 2019,
uncovered at the imperial kiln site at Jingdezhen, see
Jingdezhen Zhushan chutu Yongle Xuande guanyao ciqi lot 7 (fig. 1).
zhanlan/Imperial Porcelain of the Yongle and Xuande Periods Two smaller bowls of the same pattern are in the National
Excavated from the Site of the Ming Imperial Factory at Palace Museum in Taipei, one included in Illustrated
Jingdezhen, Hong Kong, 1989. Catalogue of Ming Dynasty Porcelain, Taipei, 1977, no. 60;
the other in Porcelain of the National Palace Museum: Blue-
Not surprisingly, Xuande porcelains became desirable and-White Ware of the Ming Dynasty, book II (part 2), Hong
collector’s items. Particularly during the late Ming period,
they were regarded as status symbols, and were valuable Kong, 1983, no. 46. A closely related bowl is also found in
commodities in the contemporary art market. Literature on the Palace Museum in Beijing, with a differently painted lotus
scroll, and florets at the foot and rim, illustrated in Geng
connoisseurship invariably placed Xuande blue-and-white Baochang, Gugong Bowuyuan cang Ming chu qinghua ci
porcelain on top, before Chenghua, Jiajing and Wanli, see
Clarence F. Shangraw, ‘Fifteenth Century Blue-and-White [Early Ming blue-and-white porcelain in the Palace Museum],
Porcelain in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco’, Beijing, 2002, vol. 2, pl. 141, together with a bowl decorated
with lingzhi, pl. 140.

78 SOTHEBY ’S IMPORTANT CHINESE ART