2. M4421
£16,500
Description
Chinese porcelain blue and white circular mizusashi, water vessel, with flat rim, painted on the exterior with two blue-ground panels, each of a large flowering peony amongst leaves and branches on a hexagonal diaper ground, between stylised ruyi-head and tassel painted handles, above a wide scroll band and beneath two pairs of double pomegranate and peach reserves on a geometric ground of keyfret and flower heads, the wide flat inverted blue-ground rim with chrysanthemum flower heads on a continuous scrolling branch with leaves, the slightly everted foot with two lines, the base glazed.
6 5/8 inches, 16.9 cm high; 7 1⁄2 inches, 19 cm total diameter.
Wanli/Tianqi, circa 1620.
Edo period wood box, lacquer cover.
Provenance & Additional Information
- From the collection of Murai Kichibei (1864-1926).
Murai Kichibei was known as the ‘King of Cigarettes’. He had a controlling interest in the tobacco manufacturing business in Japan and was the owner of the Murai Bank. - Sold by the Tokyo Art Club in their auction of Paintings and Works of Art in the Collection of the Murai Family, 26th September 1927, lot 193.
- Sold by Tanisho, Tokyo, 6th June 2017.
- Included by Marchant in their exhibition of Kosometsuke & Shonzui, 2024, no. 2, pp. 16/17.
- No other identical water vessel appears to be recorded.
- An incense burner of related form with flat indented rim, from the Tekisui Fine Arts Museum
- Collection, Ashiya, Japan, dated to 1637, is illustrated by Masahiko Kawahara in Ko-sometsuke, Monochrome Section, no. 124/5, p. 34; another, also dated to 1637, in the collection of Mr.
C. P. Lin, is illustrated by Berlinda S. L. Wong and Frank K. L. Wu in the exhibition catalogue of The Radiant Ming, 1368-1644, 2015, no. 281, p. 372; a further example is illustrated by Marchant in their exhibition of Ming Blue and White Porcelain, The Drs. A. M. Sengers Collection, 2001, no. 63, pp. 88/9. - It is interesting to compare the similar border of a Kraak blue and white klapmuts in the Groninger Museum, Groningen, illustrated by Maura Rinaldi in Kraak Porcelain, A Moment in the History of Trade, Pl. 137, p. 127.
- A related blue and white barrel-shaped censer with in-turned rim painted with the ‘Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove’ and dated to Wanli was included by Marchant in their exhibition of Chinese Blue and White, Wan Li to K’ang Hsi, 1980, no. 42.
- This form can be compared to a three-legged incense burner with brown glaze and white slip decoration, gift of Sir A. W. Franks in 1895 and published by Jessica Harrison Hall in Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, no. 11:193.
Condition
mushukui to the top rim and lower rim, natural firing crack to the interior
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