Page 37 - 2019 October Two Ming Masterpieces Hong Kong Imperial Art Sotheby's

fig. 2 fig. 3
Blue and white ‘day lily’ palace bowl, mark and period of Chenghua Blue and white ‘lily’ palace bowl, mark and period of Chenghua
Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art from the collection of Lord Cunliffe
© The Trustees of the British Museum Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 20th May 1980, lot 39

29th May 1940, lot 237; from the collection of Lionel Taipei, illustrated in Chenghua ciqi tezhan tulu/Catalogue of
Edwards, 8th February 1945, lot 87A; and from the collection the Special Exhibition of Ch’eng-hua Porcelain Ware, 1465-
of the late Major Lindsay Hay, 25th June 1946, lot 43, 1487, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2003, cat. no. 35;
when it was bought by Sparks and entered the Seligman another from the collection of Lord Cunliffe, who owned a
collection, before being bestowed to the British Museum in pair, was sold in these rooms, 20th May 1980, lot 39 and is
1973; it is included in Jessica Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics illustrated in Sotheby’s Hong Kong – Twenty Years, 1973-
in the British Museum, London, 2001, no. 6:7 (fig. 1). 1993, Hong Kong, 1993, no. 102, and in Sotheby’s. Thirty
Years in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2003, no. 246 (fig. 3).
The second Wu Lai-hsi bowl, which was not illustrated in
the sale catalogue and which is painted in a darker tone of Julian Thompson, who published the present bowl in his
cobalt, was bought by Bluett’s and entered the collection catalogue of the Alan Chuang collection, wrote, op.cit., p. 66,
of Sir Percival David, today also in the British Museum; “Since the first Chenghua blue and white bowls, in a variety
it is illustrated in Rosemary Scott and Stacey Pierson, of designs, were imported into Europe in the 1930s and
Flawless Porcelains: Imperial Ceramics from the Reign of the designated ‘palace bowls’, their equally exceptional quality
Chenghua Emperor, London, 1995, pl. 3, and in Regina Krahl in the repertoire of imperial blue and white has drawn the
and Jessica Harrison-Hall, Chinese Ceramics. Highlights of attention it deserves. The slight waxiness of the glaze, with
the Sir Percival David Collection, London, 2009, no. 36, p. 73 a subtle off-white tinge found at no other period, and the
bottom right (fig. 2). soft colour of the Chinese cobalt, so different from the
brighter colour of the imported pigment, combine to make
No bowls of this design appear to be preserved in the
Palace Museums in Beijing and Taipei, and no fragmentary the palace bowls the most sensuous of all blue and white.
examples appear to have been excavated from the waste … The finest, like the present example, are decorated with
heaps of the Ming imperial kilns in Zhushan, Jingdezhen. the same flower scroll both inside and outside the bowl in
audaciously spacious designs completely lacking the horror
Of the related ‘lily’ design at least ten examples are known to vacui of their Yongle and Xuande predecessors …”.
be preserved, one of them in the National Palace Museum,