25. M5490
£68,000
Description
Chinese Blanc de Chine wine pot and cover of cylindrical scroll form, tied around the middle with a double ribbon, the spout and handle each in the form of a chilong dragon, covered overall in an even pale cream glaze, slightly thinning above the foot, incised with a four-character mark xi yuan han mo “scholars of the Western Garden”, the recessed base with touches of glaze and the footrim revealing the biscuit body, the drop-in cover with a curled-up Buddhist lion finial.
6 3⁄8 inches, 16.2 cm total height.
Dehua, Fujian Province.
Late Ming, circa 1620-1640.
Fitted box.
Provenance & Additional Information
- Formerly in the collection of Mr. H. Soudavar.
- The four-character mark is from the Tang dynasty poem en zhi ci shi yu li zheng dian shu yuan yan fu de lin zi “Gathering of Scholars at the Western Garden” by the poet Zhang shuo.
- Two similar examples, each with a similar finial are illustrated by Wang Yamin and Huang Weiwen in Dehua Wares Collected by the Palace Museum II, nos. 149 & 150, pp. 342-349, where one from the collection of the Imperial Court of the Qing Dynasty was in the Chengde Hall of the Summer Palace; another is illustrated by Regina Krahl in Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, Vol. 2, 1994, no. 978, p. 292; another in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Bequest of Forrest R. Brauer (85.1490), is illustrated by John Ayers in Blanc de Chine, Divine Images in Porcelain, no. 21, p. 70, where he notes that a comparable wine pot was salvaged by Captain Michael Hatcher in the South China Sea where a piece on the cargo corresponded to 1643; a further example, also with a chilong dragon finial, is illustrated by P. J. Donnelly in Blanc de Chine, pl. 60C.
- A similar example from the collection of Carl Kempe is illustrated by Bo Gyllensvärd in Chinese Ceramics in the Carl Kempe Collection, no. 595, p. 181, and in the Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, 1974, no. 46, pl. 57, sold by both Bluett & Son and Eskenazi, London, no. C3127, exhibited at both the Asia Society in New York in Chinese Gold, Silver and Porcelain: the Kempe Collection, 1971, no. 137, and at the Östasiatiska Museet, Stockholm in K’ang-Hsi Porcelain: Selected Objects from Swedish Collections, 1973, no. 76, it was included by Marchant in their exhibition of Blanc de Chine, 2006, no. 63, pp. 96/7, where another is also included as no. 64, pp. 98/9; another without a cover from the collection of Derek Bolton and Captain J. Meuldijk was included by Marchant in their exhibition of Blanc de Chine, 1994, no. 63, p. 52, and also in their exhibition of Blanc de Chine, 2014, no. 98, p. 130.
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