Page 326 - Christies September 13 to 14th Fine Chinese Works of Art New York

THE PROPERTY OF A LADY
1331
A RARE GREEN AND YELLOW-GLAZED
BUDDHIST SHRINE
14TH YEAR OF CHENGHUA,
CORRESPONDING TO 1478
AND OF THE PERIOD
The deity is shown seated on a high rectangular
green and yellow-glazed plinth and wearing a
fowing robe, in front of a green-glazed rock which
supports a separately modeled six-sided parasol
with bud-form fnial. The plinth is incised on one
side with an inscription reading Chenghua shisi
nian (Chenghua 14th year) and the character wang.
Two further characters ji er are inscribed on one
back corner of the plinth top.
24º in. (61.6 cm.) high
$4,000-6,000

PROVENANCE
William Carey Crane (1891-1978) and Lois Whitin
Crane (1896-1988) Collection, and thence by
descent within the family.

This large green and yellow-glazed Buddhist
shrine can be related to a very large fgure
of Budai in The British Museum which is
similarly decorated with green and yellow
glazes and incised with a Chenghua reign mark
corresponding to 1484. See J. Harrison-Hall,
Catalogue of Late Yuan and Ming Ceramics in the
British Museum, London, 2001, p. 539-540, no.
19:1, and p. 537 where the author notes that such
large-scale fgures designed for temples were
produced in specially built small kilns, and that
they were made in section moulds, fnished by
hand, and then glazed.
Ceramics and porcelain designed for religious
use and decorated with green and yellow glazed
appear to have been particularly popular during
the Chenghua period. Compare, for example, a
green and yellow-glazed incense burner in the
form of a duck, with a Chenghua mark and of
the period, excavated from the imperial kilns
at Jingdezhen, and illustrated in A Legacy of
Chenghua: Imperial Porcelain of the Chenghua
Reign Excavated from Zhushan, Jingdezhen, The
Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1993, pp. 156-
157, no. C34.
明成化十四年（1479年） 三彩神像

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