Description

Large Chinese porcelain blue and white deep bowl of moulded lotus flower form, painted in the centre with a sixteen-petal medallion of sanyou, The Three Friends of Winter, pine, prunus and bamboo, amongst rockwork beneath clouds, encircled by two registers of large petals, the lower tier with prunus, river landscape and pine petals beneath larger petals of mountains, landscape and waves, aquatic leaves, prunus, and a sage standing on a mountain peak holding a staff, beside petal tips with wan characters beneath a blue glazed rim, the underside similarly decorated, omitting the figural petals above a smaller third tier of petals with prunus flower heads, the base with a double ring in underglaze blue.

11 3/8 inches, 28.9 cm diameter.

Tianqi, 1621-1627.

Japanese wood box.

Provenance & Additional Information

  • From the Inoue Family Collection, 19th century.
  • From the Yamada Family Collection, purchased at a Japanese auction prior to 1950, lot 1008, for Japanese Yen 45, with large auction paper label.
  • Sold by T. Edo Inouye & Son, Tokyo, 28th May 2018.
  • Included by Marchant in their exhibition of Kosometsuke & Shonzui, 2024, no. 17, pp. 54/55.
  • No other identical bowl appears published.
  • A slightly larger related bowl, gift of Dr. Yokogawa Tamisuke, in the Tokyo National Museum, is illustrated in their catalogue of Chinese Ceramics II, no. 133, p. 36; and is also illustrated by the Tokyo National Museum in Sometsuke, the Flourishing of Underglaze Blue Porcelain Ware in Asia, 2009, no. 57, p. 68; and again by the Tokyo National Museum in Masterpieces of Chinese Ceramics from the Yokogawa Tamisuke Collection, no. 72, p. 92.
  • This bowl is closely related to a dish from a private collection, included by Julia B. Curtis in Trade Taste and Transformation, Jingdezhen Porcelain for Japan, 1620-1645, China Institute Gallery, 2006, no. 83, pp. 102/3.

Condition

  • mushukui, and natural firing grit.
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