Wucai
Wucai porcelain appeared during the reign of Jiajing, the twelfth Emperor of the Ming dynasty who ruled between 1521 and 1567 and as with much Chinese porcelain, its centre of manufacture was in Jingdezhen, China’s ‘porcelain city.’
With origins in the earlier doucai ceramics, Wucai porcelain is most commonly translated as ‘five colour’ but in fact it often used more or less than five so a more accurate term would simply be ‘multicoloured.’
The traditional manufacturing technique of a Wucai vase, indeed all forms of Wucai porcelain was to first fire the vessel with a blue underglaze for the outline of the design at around 1100°C. Then the vessel was fired a second time once the overglaze of colours including red, blue, purple, yellow and green had been applied at a lower temperature of between 850-900°C.
Thanks to developments in styles and techniques, the production zenith for the Wucai vase and all forms of Wucai porcelain came in the Qing dynasty during the reign of Emperor Kangxi (1661 – 1722) and is characterised by exquisite craftsmanship and intricate decorations including motifs of dragons, flowers, plants, fish and phoenixes. Later examples of Wucai porcelain used gold and black outlines to further enhance the vividly lifelike quality of the pieces.
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M5805
£39,500A Chinese porcelain wucai baluster vase and cover, painted with seven standing ladies in a fenced garden scene, three playing musical instruments including; drums, music stone and cymbals, with a central dancing lady, her hands beneath her long sleeves, whilst three other ladies look on, all amongst rock work, a large banana plant, pine, flowers and foliage, beneath a crackled ice band at the shoulder, the neck with iron-red, camellia and rose flower sprays; the cover with two boys playing amongst rock work and plants, the unglazed base with Chinese ink characters, and two further characters on the inside of the cover.
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M5806
£29,500Chinese porcelain wucai beaker vase, gu, painted on the flared top section with two elegant standing ladies in a fenced garden scene, with four boys playing amongst plantain, rockwork and beneath clouds, mountains and pine in the distance, the lower section with fruiting peach branches, the central bulb with flower spays of camellia and prunus.
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M5471/2and3
£12,500A set of three Chinese porcelain ko-akae, wucai, polychrome lozenge shape dishes with foliate flutted rims, each painted with a seated figure of Budai, resting against his long staff holding a necklace in his right hand and the edge of his treasure sack, beside the edge of rocky promontory with an overhanging pine tree beneath iron-red cloud within an iron-red border, the rim dressed brown. The base with a two characters mark of Taiping within a double rectangle,
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M5511
£3,850A Chinese porcelain ko-akai, wucai, square dish, painted in the centre with a crosshatch design of different polychrome grounds including key-fret, cash, tile, scale and chainmail dispersed between iron red flower heads of lotus, prunus and camellia, encircled by a band of butterfly and insects beneath a flat everted rim, painted with crested swirling waves, the chamfered corners with pendent flowers.
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M4738
£42,000Chinese porcelain wucai four-tiered square picnic box and cover with indented corners, the cover painted with five crane medallions amongst clouds, each side with two chrysanthemum blooms and foliage and each section interior with two orchids, three bases with a six-character mark of Chenghua in iron-red, the flat white biscuit base unglazed.
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R9225
£9,000A Chinese porcelain famille verte large standing boy holding a vase while a smaller boy climbs his leg, all on a raised square base.
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