Page 84 - Christie's Fine Chinese Paintings March 19 2019 Auction

1632
A VERY RARE AND UNUSUAL BLUE AND WHITE WINE POT
AND COVER
WANLI PERIOD (1573-1619)
The wine pot is decorated on the sides with four cartouches, each depicting
a gentleman accompanied by an attendant in various settings, separated
by panels covered with a white glaze which is carved through with a key fret
pattern to reveal the biscuit below. The shoulder and foot are decorated with
bands of lotus petal panels enclosing various diaper patterns. Two U-shaped
metal handles are afixed at the shoulder, and the curved spout issues from
one decorative panel. The cover is decorated with four separate diaper
grounds, surmounted by an unglazed fnial pierced with a cash motif.
8¡ in. (21.2 cm.) wide including the spout, Japanese wood box
$40,000-60,000

PROVENANCE
Private collection, Japan, acquired before 1940.
Christie’s Hong Kong, 27 November 2013, lot 3517.
Wine pots of this large size and design appear to be extremely rare. The
design is a very painstaking but efective pattern created by carving
through the white-glazed layer to reveal the biscuit body which serves as an
additional, contrasting color for the overall blue and white palette. Although
diaper-ground panels carved in openwork are well-documented in smaller
bowls from the late Ming, the use of carving to reveal the biscuit appears
to be very unusual, and no similar wine pots with this technique appear to
have been published. There is, however, a large blue and white bowl which
exhibits the same fretwork ground carved through to the biscuit, illustrated
by J. Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, pp.
368-69, no. 12:40; another similar bowl is illustrated by C. J. A. Jörg, Chinese
Ceramics in the Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. The Ming and
Qing Dynasties, Amsterdam, 1997, p. 64, no. 48, where the author notes
that such decoration on large bowls is rare. The additional complexity of
rendering such a design on a wine pot adds to its rarity and allure.
明萬曆 青花開光高士圖鏤空錦地酒壺

(details)

(another view with box)

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