Page 68 - Fine Imperial Porcelain at Sothebys Hong Kong April 3 2019

fig. 1
Picture of Ancient Playthings (Guwan tu), handscroll, ink and colour on paper, Qing dynasty, Yongzheng period, 1729, detail
© Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London

8th-18th Centuries, London, 1982, nos 8, 109, 113-4, 116, all Although tankards of this form and design represent one of
of which have (or had), however, a ring foot. Compare also the best-known porcelain shapes of the Xuande period, this
an Islamic jade tankard attributed to 1450-1500, with no is due more to their distinctive character than a profusion
ring foot, included in David Roxburgh, ed. Turks: A Journey of extant examples. Similar examples, although frequently
of a Thousand Years, 600-1600, catalogue of an exhibition illustrated, are rare. One piece from the Qing court collection
at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2005, cat. no. 184; is illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the
and a white jade tankard with ring foot, made in Samarkand Palace Museum. Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed
between 1417 and 1449, published in Ma Wenkuan, ‘A Study Red. I, Shanghai, 2000, pl. 121, together with a similar piece
of Islamic Elements in Ming Dynasty Porcelain’, in Li Baoping, painted with stylised blooms with feathery petals, pl. 120,
Bruce Doar and Susan Dewar eds., Porcelain and Society, both of which are also included in Wang Guangyao and Jiang
China Archaeology and Art Digest, vol. 3, no. 4, June 2000, Jianxin eds, Imperial Porcelains from the Reign of Xuande
pp. 7-38, fig. 20. See also the painting The Sultan and His in the Ming Dynasty: A Comparison of Porcelains from the
Court, of c. 1450-1460, which depicts the Sultan and his Imperial Kiln Site at Jingdezhen and the Imperial Collection of
Janissaries with several pieces of blue-and-white ware the Palace Museum, catalogue of an exhibition at the Palace
including a tankard, illustrated in John Carswell, Blue & White: Museum, Beijing, 2015, cat. nos 72-73. Another piece in the
Chinese Porcelain Around the World, London, 2000, fig. 67. National Palace Museum, Taipei, is included in the Museum’s
Also noteworthy is a mid-15th century Islamic earthenware exhibition Mingdai Xuande guanyao jinghua tezhan tulu/
tankard painted with the motif of a Chinese dragon in blue, in Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Selected Hsüan-te
Margaret Medley, ‘Islamic and Chinese Porcelain in the 14th Imperial Porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, Taipei, 1998, cat.
and Early 15th Centuries’, Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong no. 11. Compare also an example in the Shanghai Museum,
Kong Bulletin, no. 6, 1982-1984, fig. 15. illustrated in Lu Minghua, Shanghai Bowuguan zangpin yanjiu

66 SOTHEBY ’S FINE IMPERIAL PORCELAIN