23. M5202
£14,500
Description
Chinese Blanc de Chine brushpot, bitong, of slightly tapered form with recessed base and unglazed footrim, incised on the exterior with a three column, twenty-character grass script poem and four-character maker’s mark, covered overall in a rich and even cream glaze extending on the interior.
5 1⁄8 inches, 13 cm high; 3 3⁄4 inches, 9.5 cm diameter.
Dehua, Fujian Province. Ming dynasty, 1610-1620.
Wood stand.
Provenance & Additional Information
The verse is from the poem Cheng tian si ye yo, “A Night-time Visit to Chengtian Temple” by Su Shi (1037-1101):
he ye wu yue? he chu wu zhu bai?
dan shao xian ren zhi wu liang ren zhe er
“What night is there without a moon?
Where are there no bamboos or cypresses?
But there are few idle people like the two of us.
- Signed by Dinghe shanren.
- From a Hong Kong private collection.
- A similar brushpot is illustrated by Wang Yamin and Huang Weiwen in Dehua Wares Collected by the Palace Museum II, no. 239, pp. 522/3.
- Two others were included by Marchant in their exhibition of Blanc de Chine, 2006, nos. 81 & 81A, pp. 122/3, the latter, with an incised six-character signature and date ren zi xia Lin yan yang, “summer, Ren zi year [corresponding to 1612], signed Lin yan yang”, was sold by Bonham’s London in their auction of The Marsh Collection, 2nd November 2023, lot 13; another slightly waisted example is illustrated by Robert H. Blumenfield in Blanc de Chine, the Great Porcelain of Dehua, p. 183A.
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