Page 42 - Important Chinese Art Hong Kong Sotheby's April 2017

fig. 1
Blue and white ‘floral’ double-gourd moonflask, mark and period of Xuande
© Collection of National Palace Museum, Taipei
圖一
明宣德 青花花卉紋雙耳葫蘆扁壼 《大明宣德年製》款
© 台北國立故宮博物院藏品
with oils or holy water, they served Christian pilgrims to the
tomb of St Menas near Alexandria as souvenirs, which gave
rise to the term ‘pilgrims’ flasks’. It was around that time that
such flasks (bianhu) arrived in China, probably with Sogdian
merchants, and were copied in lead-glazed earthenware.
When the Jingdezhen potters became interested in this shape
in the Yongle period, they adapted it in various ways, with
nature designs well matched to a more rounded form and this
formal design perfectly suited to this somewhat angled shape.
The sources of this rosette design are more difficult to trace,
although the geometric construction suggests a Persian or
Arab origin.
A flask of this design, reconstructed from sherds excavated
from the waste heaps of the Ming Imperial kilns at Jingdezhen,
was included in the exhibition Jingdezhen chutu Ming chu
guanyao ciqi /Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain Excavated
at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1996, cat. no. 65
(fig. 1); a similar complete flask in the Topkapi Saray Museum,
Istanbul, is illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in
the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, ed. John Ayers, London,
1986, vol. II, no. 616; one in the Umezawa Kinenkan, Tokyo, is
published in Fujioka Ryoichi and Hasebe Gakuji, eds, Sekai tōji
zenshū/Ceramic Art of the World, vol. 14: Min/Ming Dynasty,
Tokyo, 1976, col. pl. 144 and fig. 23; another was included
in the exhibition The Mount Trust Collection of Chinese Art,
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1970, cat. no. 83.
40 SOTHEBY’S 蘇富比
Two related flasks are in the Palace Museum, Beijing, from
the Qing court collection, one of similar form as the present
piece, but of Xuande mark and period, the other unmarked, but
of smaller size and with more prominent bulbous neck, both
illustrated in Geng Baochang, ed., Gugong Bowuyuan cang
Ming chu qinghua ci [Early Ming blue-and-white porcelain in
the Palace Museum], vol. 1, Beijing, 2002, pls 84 and 85, and
both attributed to the Xuande reign; two unmarked flasks, one
of each shape, are in the Shanghai Museum, also attributed to
the Xuande reign in Lu Minghua, Shanghai Bowuguan cangpin
yanjiu daxi/Studies of the Shanghai Museum Collections : A
Series of Monographs. Mingdai guanyao ciqi [Ming imperial
porcelain], Shanghai, 2007, pls 3-20 and 3-21; two unmarked
flask of the smaller shape from the Ardabil Shrine are in the
National Museum of Iran, Teheran, one illustrated in Oriental
Ceramics: The World’s Great Collections, Tokyo, New York, and
San Francisco, 1980-82, vol. 4, col. pl. 58; the other, probably
once on display in the Chehel Sotun, Isfahan, is illustrated in
Misugi Takatoshi, Chinese Porcelain Collections in the Near
East: Topkapi and Ardebil, Hong Kong, 1981, vol. III, p. 349
centre right.
For contemporary blue-and-white bowls with similar abstract
interlaced motifs around the inside or outside, see four bowls
of the Yongle period in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated
in Geng Baochang, op.cit., pls 61-4.