Page 300 - CHRISTIE'S Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art 09/14 - 15 / 17

VARIOUS PROPERTIES

1180

A RARE SMALL BLUE AND WHITE HEXAGONAL JAR
EARLY MING DYNASTY, 15TH CENTURY

The small hexagonal jar is decorated in deep cobalt blue with ‘heaped and piled efect’ with a continuous,
leafy scroll bearing diferent types of chrysanthemums between a band of petals above the foot and a ruyi
band on the shoulder.

4Ω in. (11.3 cm.) high

$70,000-90,000

This very rare hexagonal jar belongs to a group of small blue and white jars produced during the early
Ming period, all dated to the early 15th century. All are decorated in a rich underglaze blue with ‘heaped
and piled’ efect with either fowers or a combination of fowers and fruiting branches. Not only the
decoration, but the shapes also vary. A jar of squat, rounded shape from the collection of Mrs. Alfred
Clark, now in the British Museum, dated to the Yongle period (1403-1425), is illustrated by J. Harrison-
Hall, Catalogue of Late Yuan and Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, p. 111, no. 3:23.
The jar is decorated around the sides with a continuous scene of assorted plants growing from a grassy
ground. A melon-shaped jar with tapering body decorated on each of the eight lobes with a diferent
fower or fruiting branches, illustrated by W. B. Honey in The Ceramic Art of China and Other Countries
of the Far East, London, 1945, pl. 87A, which was also included in the O.C.S Exhibitions of Ming Blue and
White Porcelain, in 1946, no. 5 and in 1953, no. 47, and in the Marco Polo Seventh Centenary Exhibition,
Venice, 1954, no. 628, was sold at Sotheby’s London, 11 July 1978, lot 188, where it was dated early 15th
century. Another jar, of tapering square shape, dated Yongle-Xuande period, decorated with a diferent
fruiting branch on each facet - peach, persimmon, lychee and pomegranate - was sold at Sotheby’s
Hong Kong, 30 October 2002, lot 275. This jar is now in the Songzhutang Collection of Imperial
Chinese Ceramics and illustrated in Encompassing Precious Beauty, 2016, no. 4, where it is dated to the
Yongle period. The present jar appears to be the only published example on which the body is encircled
by a band of fower scroll.

明初 青花纏枝菊花紋六方罐

(another view)

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