Page 84 - Bonhams Chinese Works of Art February 2015 Knightsbridge

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Various Properties
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An extremely rare blue and turquoise ‘dragon’ box
Jiajing six-character mark and of the period
The sturdily potted vessel rising from a slightly splayed foot rim, the
exterior incised with three striding dragons amongst a lotus scroll,
framed by scrolling cloud motifs to the foot and to the stepped band
beneath the rim, the incised decoration picked out in turquoise and
reserved on a deep blue ground, the interior and base covered in a
plain, bluish-tinged colourless glaze.
25.5cm (10in) diam; 8cm (3.1/8in) high.
£20,000 - 30,000 HK$240,000 - 350,000
CNY190,000 - 280,000
The combination here of cobalt blue and turquoise is extremely rare
on imperial wares. At present only two other boxes of this type, dating
to the Jiajing reign, are known; the first sold by Sotheby’s Hong Kong
on 4 April 2012, lot 31, and illustrated by Regina Krahl, in Chinese
Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 4,
no. 1689. The second example is in the Victoria and Albert Museum
collection, and is illustrated by John Ayers, Far Eastern Ceramics in the lacquer boxes of this shape were in this period used as containers
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1980, no. 166.
The genre actually found its source of inspiration from an earlier
prototype, produced during the Chenghua period, when much
experimentation with two-colour schemes was carried out.
This palette does not however seem to have been widely used in the
Chenghua reign either, as only two boxes of that period appear to have
survived: one in the British Museum collection (illustrated in both Ming
82 | Bonhams
Ceramics in the British Museum, Jessica Harrison-Hall, London, 2001,
no. 6: 17. and The World’s Great Collections, Oriental Ceramics, Vol.8,
Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, Bo. Gyllensvard, plate
no. 237).
The other box, thought by Krahl to perhaps reside in the Palace
Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in Ming Qing ciqi jianding [Appraisal of
Ming and Qing porcelain], Geng Baochang, Hong Kong, 1993, col. pl.
45. As noted by Regina Krahl, this colour scheme, vaguely reminiscent
of the palette found on Fahua wares, seems to have occasionally been
used also on dishes and bowls from the Chenghua period, remnants
of which have been found in excavations of the Chenghua strata at
Zhushan, Jingdezhen.
During the later Jiajing reign, bi-chromatic designs enjoyed a renewed
popularity and many such wares, ordered for imperial use, are found
in Museum collections worldwide. Amongst these a similar box
to the present example, but with yellow and green glaze, is in the
Palace Museum, Beijing, published by Geng Baochang, ed., Gugong
Bowuyuan cang gu taoci ciliao xuancui [Selection of ancient ceramic
material from the Palace Museum], Beijing, 2005, vol. I, pl. 165
C. Clunas in his Gifts and Gift-giving in Chinese art highlights how
for gifts, and he suggests that porcelain boxes of the same shape,
such as the present lot, may have been used for the same purpose.
Interestingly, from references in literary texts such as the Jing Ping Mei,
he notes that, most likely, the boxes would have been returned to the
original owner, containing a reciprocal gift.