16. M5499

£24,500

Description

Chinese Blanc de Chine censer of bombé form, with gently flared lipped rim and splayed footrim with ribbed edge, set with Buddhist lion mask handles with curled hairwork, covered overall in a rich and even pale cream glaze, the well of the interior unglazed, the base with an impressed six-character seal mark of Xuande within a recessed rectangle.

Late Ming, circa 1620-1640.

Dehua, Fujian Province.

Provenance & Additional Information

  • From the collection of Edward T. Chow.
    Edward T. Chow (1910-1980) was born in Yangzhou and at the age of thirteen was sent to Shanghai to study with the art dealer Zhu Heting, he was also mentored by Jacob Melchior, a Danish collector working in the Customs Service. He met many of the great Western collectors and moved to Hong Kong in 1947 where he built his reputation as a dealer and significant collector of Chinese ceramics and works of art. In 1967 he moved to Geneva. Following his passing in 1980, his collection was auction in London and Hong Kong.
  • Sold by Sotheby’s Hong Kong in their auction of The Edward T. Chow Collection, Part Three, Ming and Qing Porcelain and Works of Art, 19th May 1981, lot 485.
  • Sold by Spink & Son, London.
  • Formerly in the collection of Mr. H. Soudavar.
  • Two similar censers with Xuande marks and dated to the Ming dynasty are illustrated by Wang Yamin and Huang Weiwen in Dehua Wares Collected by the Palace Museum I, nos. 121 & 122, pp. 284-287.
  • A related censer is illustrated by Rose Kerr and John Ayers in Blanc de Chine, Porcelain from Dehua, A Catalogue of the Hickley Collection, Singapore, no. 74, where the authors note that Donnelly dated these wares to between 1644 and sometime after 1702, on the basis of comparable vases and censers with the same applied lion-mask motifs. However, it has been noted that such vases are not reliable indicators due to their variable quality and the continuous production of this type until the nineteenth-century. More plausible comparative forms are thought to be the bronze and cloisonné censers of the late Ming dynasty.
  • Two other examples with different marks are illustrated by Marchant in their exhibition of Blanc de Chine, 1985, nos. 26 & 27, p. 20; three further examples are illustrated by Marchant in their exhibition of Blanc de Chine, 2006, nos. 73, 73A & 73b, pp. 110/1; and another with a different mark is illustrated by Marchant in their exhibition of Blanc de Chine, 2014, no. 87, p. 115.
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