Lot 251. Balthazar van der Ast (1593/94 Middelburg - 1657 Delft), Still life with peaches, plums, pears and grapes, ca. 1630. Estimate: € 120,000 - 160,000. Photo Hampel

In the center grapes on a silver plate, this hierarchically subordinate various fruits on the table. The presentation convinces by a well-placed light reflexes and a true-to-nature reproduction of the different materials against a monochrome background. 

Paintings by the artist are in the Louvre, Paris and the Rijkmuseum, Amsterdam.

Accompanied by certificate. 

Beaux-Arts chez Hampel Fine Art Auctions, Munich, Allemagne, le 30 Mars 2017 à 10h00

Lot 252. Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564 - 1636 Antwerp), Tondo with depiction of a Dutch proverb. Oil on wood. Diameter: approx. 19 cm. Signed in the left hand corner "P. BREVGHEL ". Estimate: € 90,000 - 120,000. Photo Hampel

Accompanied by a materials analysis by Prof. Dr. Schreiner, Vienna. Accompanied by expert's review by Dr Klaus Ertz, March 2017. 

A farmer is pushed by his wife and a servant in a pigsty, the scene cheered by a people gathering in the background. In the center of the picture is the brightly dressed peasant in stooped attitude. On the belt is a leather bag, on the left foot above the shoe, a cord that runs to the right to the edge of the picture, undoubtedly connected with the meaning which is no longer familiar to us today. A burgher in a red coat and a green vest as well as a white apron and a white kerchief, together with a man with a hat, has to push the farmers into a straw-covered pigsty. Two pig pots appear from the brittle wooden boards of the barn and enjoy beets and spirally reproduced vegetables. In the background are the upper body and heads of ten other people to be recognized, one of the figures spreads his arms. 

Provenance: English private collection. 
Belgian private collection. 
European art trade. 

Beaux-Arts chez Hampel Fine Art Auctions, Munich, Allemagne, le 30 Mars 2017 à 10h00

Lo 334. Antoine le Nain (1588-1648 Paris), Three women with three childs, ca. 1640. Oil on panel, 29.5 x 36.5 cm. Estimate: € 160,000-22,000. Photo Hampel

Three women presented with three children, the children moved into the composition to the right edge, but emphasized by the color scheme. The red color in clothing suggests the representation of children of a wealthy bourgeois family of the 17th century. Contrary to the contemporary focus on Caravaggio, le Nain mainly used muted colors in his genre painting, with a particular attention to the figures. The work is solely attributed to the hand of the artist mentioned, it could well be a private commission. 

Accompanied by certificate. 

Beaux-Arts chez Hampel Fine Art Auctions, Munich, Allemagne, le 30 Mars 2017 à 10h00

Lot 105. A Mongol 'Cloth of Gold' silk and metal thread robe, Central Asia, late 13th or 14th century. Estimate GBP 200,000 - GBP 300,000 (USD 308,400 - USD 462,600). Price realised GBP 313,250 (USD 482,718)© Christie's Images Ltd 2011

Of silk woven with a very fine design of writhing dragons on a ground of dense floral designs, with long pleated flaring skirt, long tapering sleeves with applied bands of similar but contrasting silks forming the cuffs, similar panels of similar silks forming the collar bands, lilac silk ties, with original light blue silk lining, occasional very slight splitting along crease lines, overall very good condition - 54¾in. (139cm.) long; 82¼in. (209cm.) cuff to cuff 

Lot 106. A Mongol 'Cloth of Gold' silk and metal thread robe, Central Asia, late 13th or 14th century. Estimate GBP 120,000 - GBP 160,000 (USD 185,040 - USD 246,720). Price realised GBP 145,250 (USD 223,830) © Christie's Images Ltd 2011

Of silk woven with a bold design of burnished gold lotus vine on a ground of bold floral designs, with long pleated flaring skirt, long tapering sleeves, the remains of panels of similar contrasting silks forming the collar bands, with original mid blue cotton plainweave lining, fragile in some areas, splits around the chest area and occasionally elsewhere, facings very tattered, lining splitting - 57in. (145cm.) long; 74½in. (189cm.) cuff to cuff  

Lot 27. A Samanid conical pottery bowl, Central Asia or North East Iran, 10th century. Estimate GBP 25,000 - GBP 35,000 (USD 38,550 - USD 53,970). Price realised GBP 43,250 (USD 66,648) © Christie's Images Ltd 2011

Rising from a flat foot to conical sides, the white interior with strong black kufic inscription, single dot to centre, exterior in plain white, repaired breaks - 10 7/8in. (27.8cm.) diam.   

Lot 32. An Abbasid white tin glazed cusped pottery bowl, MEsopotamia, 9th-10th century. Estimate GBP 7,000 - GBP 10,000 (USD 10,794 - USD 15,420). Price realised GBP 8,750 (USD 13,484) © Christie's Images Ltd 2011

Rising from a short foot to rounded body with vertical cusped sides, white tin glazed covering both the exterior and interior, repaired breaks - 4½in. (11.4cm.) diam.    

Lot 382. A gemset rock crystal box, North India, 17th century. Estimate GBP 5,000 - GBP 7,000 (USD 7,710 - USD 10,794). Price realised GBP 85,250 (USD 131,370) © Christie's Images Ltd 2011

Rising from short oval foot to a wide cusped rounded body to short vertical rim, with dome-shaped hinged lid with small rounded finial and carved floral terminal, the surface decorated with inset stones - 1½in. (3.8cm.) high .    

Lot 75. A Seljuk inset gold belt, Seljuk Iran or Anatolia, 12th-13th century. Estimate GBP 50,000 - GBP 70,000 (USD 77,100 - USD 107,940). Price realised GBP 61,250 (USD 94,386) © Christie's Images Ltd 2011

Comprising four shaped stepped gold beads each set with three red carnelians, alternating with three tapering pyramidal rectangular beads each set with an emerald or black stone, these larger beads divided by cartouche-shaped panels each set with two pearls and two turquoises in high cylindrical shaped mounts, a shaped larger panel at each end similar to the cartouche panels but more elaborate, the larger beads each with strong stylised kufic inscriptions along the sides against a black panel ground, the longer sides with black niello benedictory naskh inscriptions, the reverse of the larger beads engraved and niello inlaid with arabesque interlace on a black ground, the smaller cartouche-shaped beads with black arabesque interlace on a gold ground, two of the largest beads with two confronted harpies overlaying the scrolling arabesque, all the beads linked by gold link chains, old bronze repairs, one reverse damaged, very slight loss of inlay. Overall 23in. (59cm.) long .    

Lot 3610. An Exquisite Copper-Red ‘Three Fish’ Stem Cup, Mark and Period of Xuande (1426-1435). Diameter 11.7 cm. Est. HK$30 million – 40 million / US$3.8 – 5.1 million. Photo: Sotheby's.

exquisitely potted with steep rounded sides rising to a flared rim, supported on a hollow splayed foot, the exterior precisely applied with thick copper-red splashes with a vibrant design of three stylised fish depicted in silhouette, two of the fish portrayed facing each other, the other swimming in the opposite direction of the other two, creating the illusion of three different pairs of fish, covered overall save for the footring with a translucent glaze with a characteristic 'orange peel' surface, the unglazed footring showcasing the smooth white body, the interior of the cup inscribed in underglaze blue with a six-character reign mark within a double circle - d. 11.7 cm, 4 5/8  in.

Provenance: Sotheby's London, 9th November 1954, lot 71.
Christie's London, 8th December 1975, lot 130.
Collection of Edward T. Chow (1910-80).
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 25th November 1980, lot 45.
Family Collection of T.Y. Chao (1912-99).
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 18th November 1986, lot 30.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 10th April 2006, lot 1661.

Exhibited: The Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2007-13, on loan.
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Minnesota, 2013-15, on loan.

A Xuande Masterpiece
Regina Krahl

The mastery of copper-red glaze designs, such as the three fishes on this stem cup was one of the special achievements of the imperial potters of the Xuande reign (1426-35) and was not repeated to this standard in any other period. The radical simplicity of this three-fish and related three-fruit designs is without par in the history of Chinese porcelain decoration and exceptional among Chinese imperial works of art. As a porcelain design, it was dictated largely by technical considerations, as the potters aimed at achieving the deepest, most intense red available with copper pigment. As an artistic concept, however, it was not totally without precedent in Chinese art and would not have caught the Xuande Emperor completely unawares. 

Unassuming though it seems, its stark simplicity has been enlivened by a simple yet highly efficient trick: by letting one fish swim in the opposite direction from the other two, three different pairs of fish appear on the cup: a pair swimming towards each other, a pair pursuing each other, and a pair swimming away from each other, thus effortlessly achieving variation and avoiding repetition. To create the utmost effect with the most limited means is a characteristic trait of much Chinese art, well known particularly from ink painting. And although no ink painting of quite such bareness is known from this early date, the concept is not alien to Chinese Chan (Zen) painting and recalls the Six Persimmons by the 13th-century monk artist Muqi. 

Fish play an important role as symbols in Chinese thought. In Chan Buddhism many stories revolve around them that are quoted as reasons for the use of a wooden fish as a gong in monasteries to call monks and nuns to prayer and to mark other activities; in Daoism, fish are the ultimate image of a glorified freedom from restraints; and in Confucian thought they immediately evoke the scholar succeeding in the imperial exams and thus assuring success in life, like the mythical carp swimming up-river and turning into a dragon. 

After varied results in the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368) and Hongwu reign period (1368-98), the first impeccable reds were reached at the Jingdezhen imperial kilns in the Yongle reign (1403-24). Already in the Yuan dynasty, red glaze was used to decorate stem cups, but no attempt was made to lend shape to red splashes. Thus is the case with a revolving stem cup discovered among the hoard of Yuan porcelain at Gao’an, Jiangxi province, which is dramatically but unevenly splashed with copper-red pigment, but in a different technique, which did not render the red anywhere near as bright (see Liu Jincheng, ed., Gaoan Yuandai jiaocang ciqi/The Porcelain from the Cellar of the Yuan Dynasty in Gao’an, Beijing, 2006, pp. 70-71). 

Copper-red pigment used for painted designs under the glaze, and copper-red glaze applied all over the vessel were both brought to the highest standard in the Yongle reign and often passed the extreme expectations of the court; but the Yongle period was a time of experimentation at the imperial kilns, when tests were undertaken with many different materials and techniques, and a considerable part was quickly rejected and destroyed again before perfection was reached. As red glazes yielded a stronger result than red pigment used for underglaze painting, additional attempts were made to use the red glaze for painting with the brush, for which it is believed to have been sandwiched between two layers of transparent glaze. Several ambitious concepts were followed up, many of them abandoned when they proved unsatisfactory, but some retained even though the red did not fire perfectly well all the way round – an extremely rare occasion in this period and proof of the immense efforts such wares entailed. A Yongle stem cup with three fish of red glaze among underglaze-blue waves, and a stem bowl painted in red glaze with dragons and a formal border, for example, were both abandoned at the kiln site (their re-assembled fragments included in the exhibition Jingdezhen Zhushan chutu Yongle guanyao ciqi [Yongle Imperial porcelain excavated at Zhushan, Jingdezhen], Capital Museum, Beijing, 2007, cat. nos 113 and 11). The magnificent large Yongle meiping with white dragons reserved among red waves, formerly in the Meiyintang and now the Xiling collection, on the other hand, probably the most ambitious project ever undertaken in this red glaze decoration technique, was retained even though not all the waves have turned a bright colour (Regina Krahl, ‘China without Dragons. An Exhibition of the Oriental Ceramic Society’, Orientations, vol. 47, no. 8, November-December 2016, p. 98, fig. 10). 

In the Xuande reign, the potters appear to have realised that painting with a red glaze could work well as long the designs were reduced to distinct silhouettes. This is when cups, stem cups and stem bowls with three red fish or three red fruit only, without any accompanying decoration and lacking even the customary underglaze-blue lines around rim and foot, began to be produced. The admirable, jewel-like colour and texture of these silhouettes was achieved only in the Xuande reign and was not matched again even in the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), when these designs were frequently copied, particularly in the Yongzheng (1723-35) and Qianlong (1736-95) eras. 

Although very well executed examples with red glaze decoration such as the present piece are known from the Xuande period, the numbers remained very small and more examples may have been destroyed than were deemed successful and preserved. Many deliberately broken stem cups, stem bowls and cups with red fish, red fruit, red dragons or other sea creatures, all of Xuande mark and period, have been recovered from the waste heaps of the Ming imperial kiln site (some of them included in the exhibitions Imperial Porcelain of the Yongle and Xuande Periods Excavated from the Site of the Ming Imperial Factory at Jingdezhen, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1989, cat. nos 55, 75 and 76, and Jingdezhen chutu Ming Xuande guanyao ciqi/Xuande Imperial Porcelain excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1998, cat. nos. 45-1 and 2, 46-1 and 2, 49-1 and 2, 101-1, 2 and 3, and F 9). Attempts were also made to replace the copper-red with an overglaze iron red, which, however, equally did not always yield the desired result (e.g. cat. no. 77 in the former catalogue, cat. no. 48-1 in the latter). 

The present piece, with its generous, deep cup shape, is a particularly rare example. Only one companion piece appears to be recorded, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, published in Mingdai Xuande guanyao jinghua tezhan tulu/Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Selected Hsüan-te Imperial Porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, Taipei, 1998, cat. no. 87 (fig. 1), together with a ‘red fruit’ example of the same form, cat. no. 86, as well as smaller and more shallow stem cups with three copper-red fishes, cat. no. 81, with three iron-red fishes, cat. no. 82, as well as stem bowls with the same copper-red fruit or fish design, cat. nos 98 and 99; another smaller ‘red fish’ stem cup was included in the Museum’s exhibition Ming Xuande ciqi tezhan mulu/Catalogue of a Special Exhibition of Hsuan-te Period Porcelain, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1980, cat. no. 124, where it is illustrated together with a later copy, cat. no. 126, as well as later copies of ‘fruit’ stem cups, cat. nos 125 and 127. 

fig. 1. Copper-red ‘fish’ stem cup, mark and period of Xuande© Collection of National Palace Museum, Taipei

The Palace Museum, Beijing, also holds only a smaller and more shallow stem cup of this design, see The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red, Shanghai, 2000, vol. 1, pl. 226, with a detail on p. 246; another smaller example in the Shanghai Museum is published in Lu Minghua, Shanghai Bowuguan zangpin yanjiu daxi/Studies of the Shanghai Museum Collections : A Series of Monographs. Mingdai guanyao ciqi [Ming imperial porcelain], Shanghai, 2007, pl. 3-52; and one from the Eumorfopoulos Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum is illustrated in Daisy Lion-Goldschmidt, Ming Porcelain, London, 1978, col. pl. 61; another stem cup of this smaller form, from the collection of Allen J. Mercher, the Chang Foundation, Taipei, and the Chunzaizhai Collection, illustrated in James Spencer (comp.), Selected Chinese Ceramics from Han to Qing Dynasties, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1990, cat. no. 90, was sold in our New York rooms, 2nd November 1956, lot 223; and in these rooms 14th November 1983, lot 126, and 8th October 2014, lot 3001. 

A ‘three fish’ stem cup of the same deep shape as the present piece is also depicted in one of the Guwantu [Pictures of Antiquities] among other items in the imperial collection in the Yongzheng period, its stem firmly locked in a tall wooden stand to keep it safe. The scroll, dated in accordance with AD 1728, is preserved in the British Museum from the Sir Percival David Collection and was sold in our London rooms, 19th May 1939, lot 62; see the exhibition catalogue China. The Three Emperors 1662-1795, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2005-6, cat. no. 168 top left (fig. 2). The Yongzheng Emperor also appears to have commissioned copies of this design, where the fishes, however, often show a less attractive liver-red colour. 

fig. 2. Anonymous court artists, Pictures of Ancient Playthings, ink and colours on paper, handscroll, detail, Qing dynasty, Yongzheng period© The Trustees of the British Museum

The present stem cup comes from two of the most remarkable collections of Chinese ceramics, those of Edward T. Chow (1910-80) and T.Y. Chao (1912-99). Edward Chow, a connoisseur-dealer who had worked in Shanghai and Hong Kong before settling in Switzerland, had furnished and helped to shape some of the most important collections of Chinese art, such as those of Sir Percival David, Barbara Hutton, King Gustav Adolf of Sweden, J.M. Hu, or Ataka Eiichi. The three sales of his personal collection at Sotheby’s Hong Kong and London in 1980 and 1981 remain among the most remarkable and successful auctions of Chinese art, which exerted a strong influence on the art market in Hong Kong. One of the most eager buyers at these sales was T.Y. Chao, a shipping magnate, who clearly took Edward T. Chow as a model in forming his own collection. When the T.Y. Chao Family collection was sold in these rooms in 1986, it echoed the Chow sales of a few years earlier. 

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, Hong Kong, 05 avr. 2017, 02:30 PM

Lot 3015. A Magnificent And Extremely Rare Dry-Lacquer Head Of Avalokitesvara, Tang Dynasty, 43.3 cm / Overall (including wood stand) 67.8 cm. Est. HK$18 million – 25 million / US$2.3 million – 3.2 million. Photo: Sotheby's.

superbly and sensitively modelled as the sensuous full face of a the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara portrayed with slender bow-shaped eyes and hooded eyelids casting a meditative and powerful aura with the downcast omniscient black glass pupils, all below arched eyebrows depicted with exquisitely and fluidly carved lines tapering at the ends, the curved contours of the eyebrows juxtaposed with the well defined straight nose and a small bud mouth picked out with traces of red pigment, all framed by neatly coiffed hair gathered into a high chignon and thick swirling tresses trailing along the rounded cheeks, accompanied by long pendulous earlobes with elongated vertical slits, the head with an attractive variegated slate-grey lacquer patina, the back of the head left open revealing hemp layers on the interior, wood stand -43.3 cm, 17 in. overall 67.8 cm, 26 3/8  in.

Provenance: An old Japanese collection.

Spiritual Beauty in Lacquer
Regina Krahl

This majestic image of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara captivates the viewer as a personification of all that is admirable, desirable and reassuring in Buddhist thought. There is no technique or material that can evoke the harmony and perfection of a divine face like this ‘dry lacquer’ technique. In spite of its genderless, spiritual beauty, this masterful sculpture appears to breathe with life. The dry lacquer technique allowed for particularly precise modelling and in combining rounded, fleshy features with sharp, stylised lines, the sculptors palpably manifested the Bodhisattva’s sanctity, wisdom and compassion. 

The Tang dynasty (618-907) saw an unequalled flowering of the Buddhist doctrine, which exerted a major influence on all strata of Chinese society right up to the court. In spite of repeated controversies that unfolded around the growing popularity of this religion and the multiplication of its monasteries – investiture as monk could be useful for saving taxes – Buddhism continued to grow in popularity until the radical prosecution of Buddhists in the 840s, but even this setback appears to have been of only short duration.

At the same time, Buddhist imagery saw the development of a fully Chinese sculptural style. Although sculptors had begun to free themselves from centuries of Hellenistic, Indian and Central Asian inspiration already a century or so earlier, Buddhist sculptures had remained rather formal. Only in the mid-Tang period did they embrace a sensuous naturalism in their representation that made faces and bodies more human and poses more relaxed. The present head derives from probably the finest era of China’s sculptural tradition, the period of full maturity achieved in the High Tang around the reign of Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712-756), which is characterised by relatively life-like representation, which rendered deities more approachable and less distant than before.

The present head is unique and no closely comparable dry lacquer head appears to be preserved, but it immediately recalls another superb head of Avalokitesvara, but carved of white marble, belonging to the famous hoard of sculptures recovered from the ruins of the Anguo Temple in Xi’an, and today housed in the Forest of Steles in Xi’an (fig. 1). This exquisite sculpture, which also has no surviving parallel, shows a similar fleshy face with narrow eyes, prominent, sharply curved brows emphasised by an engraved line, small mouth with thick lips, long pendulous ears terminating in thin, slit lobes, and rich strands of hair tied up in an ornate bun; see Zhongguo meishu quanji: Diaosu bian [Complete series on Chinese art: Sculpture section], 4: Sui Tang diaosu [Sui and Tang sculpture], Beijing, 1988, pl. 50 (fig. 1). 

fig. 1. White marble head of a bodhisattva, Tang dynasty, Forest of Steles, Xi’an

The Anguo Temple, constructed in 710 next to the imperial palace complex Daminggong in the Tang capital, Chang’an, was an important place of worship of the zhenyan (‘true word’) school of Esoteric Buddhism. While Avalokitesvara is one of the deities revered in many forms of Buddhism, other sculptures of the group represent deities that are specific to the Esoteric doctrine. This whole group of Esoteric sculptures appears to have been carved at the same time, probably as an ensemble, and is generally attributed to the High Tang period under Emperor Xuanzong or soon after; it is unlikely that these grand white marble sculptures, with details in gilding, could have been produced without patronage from the imperial family.

Although Emperor Xuanzong had a close affinity to Daoism and undertook repeated efforts to curtail the expansion of Buddhism, Esoteric Buddhism with its mystical practices exerted a strong fascination on him as well as on the Tang aristocracy in general. Famous Tantric masters from India worked in the capital under imperial patronage and performed rituals and magic feats for the Emperor.

According to Henric Sørensen, the Anguo Temple may have been destroyed towards the end of the 9th century (in 871 it was still visited by Emperor Yizong). He writes “Among the images and sculptural fragments recovered from the site are those of buddhas, bodhisatvas, and vidyãrãjas, which clearly reveal the Esoteric Buddhist context that produced them”; and “Unfortunately, very little of this rich material has survived in China, and were it not for the Japanese pilgrim-monks who came to China during the second half of the Tang to study Esoteric Buddhism and, upon returning to Heian, brought with them many images, paintings, mandalas, blueprints, manuals, and ritual objects, our knowledge of the material culture of Esoteric Buddhism during the mid- to late Tang would have been almost non-existent” (Charles Orzech, Henric Sørensen & Richard Payne, eds, Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia, Leiden, 2011, pp. 404-5). Tang sculptures brought to Japan by travelling monks exerted a lasting influence on Japanese sculpture.

The dry-lacquer technique in particular was early on adopted in Japan, much used between the 8th and 9th centuries, around the same time as Esoteric Buddhism took hold in Japan, and continued to remain popular there for much longer than in China. Two famous Esoteric priests, Kūkai (774-835) and Saichō (767-822) left Japan for China in the early Heian period (794-1185) and besides religious scriptures brought back many objects of religious significance. Kūkai studied Esoteric Buddhism in the capital, Chang’an, and upon returning to Japan founded the Shingon (Chinese zhenyan, ‘true word’) school of Buddhism there. The Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, Kannon Bosatsu, was much worshipped in Esoteric Buddhism in Japan.

The production of dry lacquer is complex and onerous. In China, it does not appear to have been practised for long and was only occasionally revived in later dynasties, but never again reached the level of craftsmanship and artistry it had achieved in the Tang. Massive sculptures such as this over life-size head of a bodhisattva, and the recently sold Buddha head from the Sakamoto Collection (fig. 3), which very likely belonged to the same ensemble of sculptures, required patronage of the highest sort, probably not available without involvement of the imperial court.

Manufacture began with a stick-like wooden model over which a figure was sculpted from clay. Onto this clay base patches of lacquer-imbued hemp were pasted that later would provide the core of the figure. These were covered with layers of lacquer, which would be sculpted in greater detail and carved to acquire their final appearance. The figures were then cut open at the back and the original construction of wood and clay removed to hollow them out and to leave only the thin skin of hemp and lacquer. The advantages of such light figures compared with ones carved from stone are obvious, as they could be completed in specialised metropolitan workshops, easily transported, carried around in processions – or brought to Japan.

The extant number of Tang dynasty images made in this sophisticated technique is extremely rare. This is hardly surprising given the demanding production process on the one hand, which must have severely limited the number of figures commissioned, and the delicacy of these works on the other hand, which mostly likely reduced their number quite dramatically over the centuries. The closest companion to the present head is the head of Buddha from the collection of Sakamoto Gorō, included in the exhibition Kaikan tokubetsu shuppin seihin senshu [A special inaugural exhibition], Kyushu National Museum, Fukuoka, 2005, cat. no. 30, and sold in these rooms, 8th October 2013, lot 120 (fig. 3); and only one other example executed on a similarly impressive scale (c. 50 cm) is recorded, another equally magnificent head of a Bodhisattva in a private collection which, however may have belonged to a different sculpture group. It is very similarly modelled, the serene face represented with fine detail and the hair draped in a bun, but displays a more slender physique.

fig. 3. Dry-lacquer head of Buddha, Tang dynasty. Collection of Sakamoto Gorō. Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 8th October 2013, lot 120

Six other Tang dry-lacquer sculptures are recorded, all exquisite sculptures in their own right, but quite different in scale (the largest being a seated figure of 96.5 cm), less distinctive in their expression and executed with much less detail, particularly to the eyes and eyebrows. The famous seated Buddha figure in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the largest one extant, is illustrated, for example, in Sekai bijutsu taisenshū/New History of World Art: Tōyō hen [Eastern series], vol. 4, Tokyo, 1997, pl. 132; a similar seated Buddha figure in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. has been published together with the Metropolitan Museum Buddha (p. 809) in Matsubara Saburō, Chūgoku bukkyō chōkoku shiron/The Path of Chinese Buddhist Sculpture, Tokyo, 1995, vol. III, p. 810. A Buddha bust formerly with Yamanaka & Co., but its present whereabouts unknown, is published in Osvald Sirén, Chinese Sculpture from the Fifth to the Fourteenth Century, London, 1925, pl. 549; another Buddha bust from the Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection is in the Seattle Art Museum (no. 51.71). While all these Buddha figures seem related, a seated Bodhisattva figure and a dancing apsara, both in the Cleveland Museum of Art (nos 1983.86 and 1953.356), are very different in style.

Dry-lacquer sculptures are discussed in connection with the Cleveland apsara figure in Sherman E. Lee, ‘A Chinese Lacquer Sculpture’, Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 43, no. 1, January 1956, pp. 6-9, where some of the above figures as well as some later ones are mentioned, including an almost complete luohan figure in the collection of John D. Rockefeller Jr, which does not seem to be published elsewhere and may or may not date from the Tang. Siren illustrates in addition a seated Buddha figure from the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore (no. 25.9), which has been suggested to represent a prototype for the above figures. It also has a lacquer-and-cloth surface, but applied onto a wooden core that has been left in place.

The mature Tang style of the present head is similarly seen on several stone heads of Bodhisattvas from the Tianlongshan caves near Taiyuan in Shanxi province, such as the examples in the Nezu Art Museum, Tokyo, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (fig. 2); see the exhibition catalogue Chinese Buddhist Stone Sculpture. Veneration of the Sublime, Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, Osaka, 1995, cat. no. 67; and Alan Priest, Chinese Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1944, pl. LXXXIV. Compare also a wooden figure with related features, of slightly later date, in the Liaoning Provincial Museum, illustrated in Zhongguo meishu quanji, op.cit., pl. 68.

fig. 2. Head of a bodhisattva, Tang dynasty© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Sotheby's. Curiosity III, Hong Kong, 04 Apr 2017, 10:30 AM

Lot 3101. An Extremely Rare Doucai Stem Cup, Mark and Period of Chenghua (1465-1487). Height 7.7 cm. Est. HK$8 million – 12 million / US$ 1.04 million – 1.55 million. Photo: Sotheby's.

delicately potted with a deep U-shaped cup supported on a tall splayed foot bordered with a raised fillet, the exterior of the cup delicately decorated in underglaze blue as well as red, yellow and green enamels with four evenly spaced medallions of roses wreathed by fine foliage, two of the blooms rendered in red and the other two in yellow, all between stylised floral and pearl motifs at the rim and an undulating border supporting ruyi-heads below, the underside of the stem inscribed in underglaze blue with a six-character reign mark written in a semi-circle - 7.7 cm, 3 in.

Provenance: Collection of Mr Tuckenheim, acquired at Chateau Saint Charles de Percy, Normandy, by repute.

“Of Rare Ingenuity and Extraordinary Skill”
Regina Krahl

The joyful aspect of Chenghua doucai porcelain with its gaily combined, jewel-like colours, was never surpassed or even equalled in any other period. The small, delicately potted treasures created by the imperial kilns in the doucai (‘dove-tailed colours’) palette for only about a decade in the late 1470s and early ‘80s became desirable collector’s items soon after the end of the reign and are among the rarest and most sought-after Chinese porcelains today. They reflect an atmosphere of plenty at the court that was not to be of long duration.

In 1476, when the Emperor’s favourite concubine, Wan Guifei (1430-87), was officially raised to the status of principal concubine, huang guifei, she became a dominant influence on the Emperor as well as the court. The following years are marked by lavish spending on luxury goods at the palace. No expenses were spared to commission sophisticated pieces from the imperial kilns executed to the highest grade of perfection. Chenghua doucai porcelains, with their fine potting and multi-coloured decoration that required several firings represented an extravagant luxury due to the labour-intensive production and high failure rate as well as their mainly pleasurable rather than utilitarian character. Ts’ai Ho-pi believes that Chenghua doucai porcelains represented the wares characterised in the records as qiji yiqiao (‘of rare ingenuity and extraordinary skill’) or qiji yiwu (‘extraordinary objects of rare ingenuity’), whose manufacture was repeatedly denounced by officials (Cai Hebi, Chuanshi pin Chenghua ci/Everlasting Chenghua Porcelain, Taipei, 2003).

Their production, which devoured thousands of taels of silver, was eventually stopped in 1485 to ease the burden on the local population, who was responsible for the labour costs. This moratorium on the manufacture of such polychrome porcelains seems to have lasted throughout the following reigns of the Hongzhi (1488-1505) and Zhengde (1506-21) Emperors. The unique historical situation in this brief span of a decade that made the production of these wares possible, was never repeated. It contributes to the outstanding esteem that Chenghua doucai porcelains have enjoyed ever since and still enjoy today and explains their extraordinary rarity.

Some rare prototypes of this polychrome colour scheme, where underglaze blue is combined with several enamel colours, exist from the Xuande reign (1426-35) and probably the ‘interregnum’ period (1436-64), known mainly from sherds discovered at the Jingdezhen kiln sites, but also from two bowls of Xuande mark and period, preserved in the Sagya Monastery, Sagya county, Tibet (Zhongguo taoci quanji [Complete series on Chinese ceramics], Shanghai, 1999-2000, vol. 13, pl. 90). These bowls are painted with polychrome lotus pond motifs with mandarin ducks as well as blue-and-white borders of five-clawed dragons and Tibetan writing. The overall colour aspect is similar, although only part of the design is outlined in underglaze blue. It was only when this polychrome decoration was adapted to the style now known as doucai in the latter part of the Chenghua period that it became a classic, and as such experienced a popular revival in the Qing dynasty (1644-1911).

This small stem cup represents in every respect a totally new departure: the exceedingly tactile, characteristic, slightly smoky material; the bright colours that must have been a revelation, when they first came out of the kilns; the elegant shape in new proportions, ever so faintly flared at the rim; the concise flower medallions and pearl motifs, all outlined in blue; and the mark written in a semi-circle on the underside of the stem: nothing had been seen like this on porcelain before.

Only five, or perhaps merely four other stem cups of this design appear to have survived: one in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., is illustrated in Oriental Ceramics: The World’s Great Collections, Tokyo, New York and San Francisco, 1980-82, vol. 9, fig. 115; and in Ming Porcelains in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1953, fig. 20; another in the Palace Museum, Beijing, from the Qing court collection, has been published in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Porcelains in Polychrome and Contrasting Colours, Hong Kong, 1999, pl. 172 right (fig. 1), together with a doucai stem cup with lotus medallions but a plain flaring stem, pl. 172 left, and one of the same shape as the present piece, but decorated with a stylised lotus scroll, pl. 173; and a third one is illustrated in A.D. Brankston, Early Ming Wares of Chingtechen, Peking, 1938, pl. 27c, where it is attributed to the David Collection; however, according to Suzanne G. Valenstein in Ming Porcelains. A Retrospective, China House Gallery, China Institute in America, New York, 1970-71, p. 54, it never belonged to Sir Percival, but is the cup from the George Eumorfopoulos Collection, sold in our London rooms, 30th May 1940, lot 295, and again 9th November 1954, lot 69, from the collection of Dr Henry de Laszlo; a fourth cup was sold in these rooms, 26th October 2003, lot 11.

fig. 1. Doucai‘rose’ stem cup, mark and period of Chenghua, Qing court collection© Palace Museum, Beijing

Julian Thompson in his ‘List of Patterns of Chenghua Porcelain in Collections Worldwide’ in The Emperor’s broken china. Reconstructing Chenghua porcelain, Sotheby’s, London, 1995, pp. 116-129 records the present pattern as D40 and lists another stem cup of this design in the Musée Guimet, Paris, apparently unpublished; this may, however, be the Eumorfopoulos cup. 

No piece of this design appears to be remaining in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, which owns the largest number of Chenghua doucai pieces. A deliberately destroyed stem cup of this design, reconstructed from sherds found at the Ming imperial kiln site in Jingdezhen, was included in Sotheby’s 1995 exhibition The Emperor’s broken china, op.cit., cat. no. 40 (fig. 2).

fig. 2. Doucai ‘rose’ stem cup, mark and period of Chenghua© Jingdezhen Ceramics Archaeology Institute

On the Palace Museum piece (fig. 1), the red and green enamels are severely discoloured, probably due to the palace fire of 1923. The Guimet stem cup is equally said to be fire-damaged, as is the Eumorfopoulos cup, which shows strong crazing at the stem.

In the night of 26th June 1923, a notorious fire broke out in the Jianfugong Huayuan, the gardens of the Palace of Establishing Prosperity in the Forbidden City, which said to have lasted for three days and to have burnt down 120 rooms. The Jianfugong complex, situated at the north-western tip of the Forbidden City was built by the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736-95) in 1742. It is known to have become one of the Emperor’s favourite retreats and accordingly housed a large number of works of art and antiques. After the end of the Qing dynasty, the abdicated Emperor of China, Puyi (r. 1908-11), who continued to reside in the former Imperial Palace, was alerted by his English teacher, Reginald Johnston, that palace eunuchs were selling imperial artefacts. Although he had repeatedly planned a review of the palace holdings, a disastrous fire occured before this was undertaken, where a part of the palace burnt to the ground. It was suspected to have been set by palace staff in order to disguise the fact that artefacts were missing. The clearance of the ruins was entrusted to an outside company. Since the site had contained gold statues, the task was put out to tender, with the highest bid going to a gold shop. In addition to gold, some porcelains were rescued, but apparently only the most valuable were deemed worthy of retaining inspite of their damage.

Besides some pieces of burnt Ru ware, only Chenghua doucai pieces appear to have left the palace collection because of this incident. Some fifteen Chenghua doucai vessels clearly affected by fire are recorded outside China, mostly listed by Julian Thompson, op.cit. At least five obviously fire-damaged Chenghua pieces are remaining in the Palace Museum, Beijing, see The Complete Collection of Treasures, op.cit., pls 169-172; one in the National Museum of China, Beijing, see Zhongguo Guojia Bowuguan guancang wenwu yanjiu congshu/Studies on the Collections of the National Museum of China. Ciqi juan, Mingdai [Porcelain section, Ming dynasty], Shanghai, 2007, pl. 55; and three or more in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, see Chenghua ciqi tezhan/Special Exhibition of Ch’eng-hua Porcelain Ware, 1465-1487, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2003, probably cat. nos 128, 168, 186.

However, many more pieces may have been involved, since not all pieces recovered from that palace fire were seriously affected by it. The present stem cup was probably among those pieces rescued from that palace fire and deaccessioned from the imperial palace on account of this. This is suggested by the black-stained biscuit visible under the foot, which is equally seen on the companion piece in the Palace Museum, Beijing; but on the present cup the enamels have survived the accident intact.

For related Chenghua doucai stem cups of this shape, painted with lotus scrolls or lotus medallions, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, see Chenghua ciqi tezhan, op.cit., cat. nos 171-176. A fire-damaged stem cup of the same shape with lotus medallions between the same supporting motifs, from the Wu Lai Hsi, Carl Kempe and Meiyintang collections, illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 2, no. 676, was sold in these rooms, 5th October 2011, lot 28, where further doucai stem cups of related shape or design are recorded.

Sotheby's. In His Majesty's Palm: Exquisite Porcelain Playthings Hong Kong, 05 Apr 2017, 10:20 AM

Lot 3102. An Extremely Fine and Rare Blue and White Cup, Mark and Period of Chenghua (1465-1487). Diameter 7.8 cm. Est. HK$15 million – 20 million / US$1.94 million – 2.58 million. Photo: Sotheby's.

exquisitely potted with rounded sides resting on a countersunk base, delicately painted in characteristic soft tones of cobalt-blue in outlines infilled with wash, the exterior with six evenly spaced flowering gardenia sprigs, each with a single bloom enclosed by clustered leaves, the interior with a shallow domed centre (mantouxin) decorated with a medallion enclosing a multi-petalled flower, possibly a hydrangea, encircled by a ring of seven leaves, the base inscribed with the six-character reign mark within a double rectangle, all beneath an unctuous glaze fired to a waxy finish - 7.8 cm, 3 in.

Provenance: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 24th November 1981, lot 69.

Literature: The Leshantang Collection of Chinese Porcelain, Taipei, 2005, cat. no. 8.

A Tea Cup for Lady Wan
Regina Krahl

This adorable cup is one of the characteristic creations of the Chenghua (1465-87) imperial kilns during their most fruitful period of production. The last years of the Chenghua reign, in the late 1470s and 1480s, were not only the kilns’ busiest period, but saw also the development of the finest and most distinctive wares – those we generally associate with this reign name.

Representative of these years are small vessels for the table, such as cups, stem cups, bowls and dishes, as well as small jars. In designing these wares, the potters embarked on a new stylistic direction, breaking with the taste of the Xuande period (1426-35) that was still very much alive in the early part of the Chenghua reign. While the porcelains made at the beginning of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) were still under the influence of foreign styles, those of the late Chenghua period, such as this cup, are quintessentially Chinese in concept. This period saw the introduction of unconventional, unassuming blue-and-white designs, such as the present flower pattern, which embody the charm and peculiar identity of Chenghua porcelain. The designs are new and new is the modest, simple way in which they are distributed over the vessel surface.

The porcelains of that late phase were intended for personal enjoyment, for individual use in an intimate setting, and cannot be fully appreciated unless they are picked up and turned around in the hand. They require a connoisseur’s eye and touch to be enjoyed in all their beauty. Although the precise reason for this momentous change of style and direction that took place at the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen late in the Chenghua period is not yet fully understood, these manufactories appear to have received unprecedented imperial patronage towards the end of the reign, either directly from the Emperor or from his favourite concubine Wan Guifei (1430-87). Wan Guifei was officially made huang guifei, principle concubine, in 1476 and from then on became notorious for using her power and influence to help her family to important positions and for squandering enormous sums on entertainments and luxuries. Rather than producing practical porcelains for general use at court or for ritual, the imperial kilns concentrated in this period on manufacturing little gems to please and delight their demanding patrons.

This charming cup, with its small size, precise potting, softly curved profile, subdued painting, wonderfully tactile surface, and square reign mark embodies all the qualities that make Chenghua porcelains so desirable. Although several small cups of related shape were produced in the Chenghua reign, the present low, rounded form is particularly pleasant and harmonious in its proportions, and its shallow domed centre inside, known as mantouxin after Chinese steamed (mantou) buns, which is echoed outside by a recessed, concave base, makes it particularly endearing.

The six gardenia flowers, artlessly styled and distributed around the sides, all with a central bloom surrounded by differently arranged leaves, represent a motif otherwise very rarely used on Chinese porcelain; even rarer is the multi-petalled flower inside the cup, perhaps a hydrangea, encircled by a ring of leaves, which does not seem to be otherwise known from Ming blue-and-white. The Chenghua reign mark enclosed in a double rectangle that is inscribed on the base was introduced only in the latter part of the period and is thus found on some of the finest Chenghua pieces.

As all porcelains of Chenghua mark and period, cups of this design are extremely rare. In this case only two other examples appear to be preserved, both in Chinese museum collections: one cup, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, from the Qing court collection, is illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red, Shanghai, 2000, vol. 2, pl. 36, where it is stated that this cup was used in the palace for foods; the other is preserved in the Shanghai Museum, published in Wang Qingzheng, Qinghua youlihong/Underglaze Blue & Red, Hong Kong, 1987, col. pl. 77 (fig. 1). No cup of this design appears to be preserved in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, which holds the largest collection of Chenghua imperial porcelains.

fig. 1. Blue and white ‘floral’ bowl, mark and period of Chenghua© Shanghai Museum

This design has also been discovered among the vessels discarded at the Ming imperial kilns and a cup reconstructed from sherds was included in the exhibition A Legacy of Chenghua: Imperial Porcelain of the Chenghua Reign Excavated from Zhushan, Jingdezhen, Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1993, cat. no. C 60 (fig. 2), where the piece is identified as a cup for tea, and where Bai Kun wrote “It is a tradition that the more concentrated the tea, the smaller the cup and vice versa. This cup with a capacity of only tens of millilitres was an ideal one for the Emperor Chenghua and Lady Wan to enjoy the art of tea drinking …” and “The relatively thick walls protect one’s hand from being burnt while grasping the hot cup of tea, while the wide mouth and shallow body allow the heat to escape rather quickly.” He further states “It is quite possible that the practice of drinking ‘Gongfu tea’ actually originated during Chenghua and evolved thereafter.” He thus suggests that cups of this form were used for strong fermented tea, similar to that drunk today in the gongfu tea ceremony. Although the practice of gongfu tea preparation can at present not be traced as far back, fermented teas are considered to have been in use by the early Ming dynasty or even earlier (see H.T Huang, Science and Civilisaton in China, vol. 6: Biology and Biological Technology, part V: Fermentations and Food Science, Cambridge, 2000, p. 538). Gardenia blossoms were also used for flavouring tea. 

fig. 2. Blue and white’ floral’ cup, mark and period of Chenghua© Jingdezhen Ceramics Archaeology Institute

In his introduction to the Leshantang Collection in Sotheby’s 2008 sale catalogue, entitled ‘A Tradition of Elegance’, Julian Thompson characterised the taste behind the Leshantang Collection as standing in the great Shanghai tradition of ceramic connoisseurship and collecting, and wrote about this cup:

                    … a small wine cup from the later period of the reign of Chenghua …, when the most delicate of all Imperial porcelains were produced. The glaze is waxy and lustrous, and the underglaze-blue brilliant but soft in texture. The shape is characteristic of the period, with wide, countersunk base and very steep sides, like the famous doucai chicken cups bearing the reign mark written in a double square in place of the usual double circle. The decoration is elegant simplicity itself... Like all Chenghua porcelain, cups of this pattern are rare and only two others are recorded, in the Shanghai Museum and the Palace Museum, Beijing.

Sotheby's. In His Majesty's Palm: Exquisite Porcelain Playthings Hong Kong, 05 Apr 2017, 10:20 AM

Lot 3218. An Exceptional And Extremely Rare Dingyao Carved 'Peony' Bottle Vase, Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127). Height 25 cm. Est. HK$8 – 12 million / US$1 million – 1.5 million. Photo: Sotheby's.

the sumptuous globular body surmounted by a tall neck of elegant cylindrical form, slightly flaring as it emanates from the shoulder and extends to a flanged everted rim, all supported on a splayed foot, very finely carved with two luxuriant peony flowers, their stems and foliage spreading out to each other, the neck and foot left undecorated, covered all over in an exquisite creamy-white glaze, the hollow foot and base left partly glazed - 25 cm, 9 3/4  in.

Provenance: Collection of Sir Alan and Lady Barlow (1881-1968 and 1885-1989).
Collection of Dr Alan Barlow.
Christie's London, 8th December 1986, lot 227.
The Muwen Tang Collection.
Sotheby's London, 12th November 2003, lot 8.

Exhibited: Song Dynasty Wares: Ting, Ying Ch'ing and Tz'u Chou, The Oriental Ceramic Society, London, 1949, cat. no. 13.
Chinese Ceramics from Sir Alan Barlow's Collection, Arts Council, London, 1953, no. 42.
The Arts of the Sung Dynasty, Oriental Ceramic Society, London, 1960, cat. no. 27, pl. 15.
A Thousand Years of Chinese Ceramic Art, Oriental Ceramic Society, Quantas Gallery, London, 1966, cat. no. 23.
The Ceramic Art of China, Arts Council of Great Britain and The Oriental Ceramic Society, London, 1971, fully illustrated catalogue in Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, vol. 38, 1969-71, pl. 43, cat. no. 68. 
Selected Treasures of Chinese Art, Min Chiu Society Thirtieth Anniversary Exhibition, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1990-91, cat. no. 87.
Song Ceramics from the Kwan Collection, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1994, cat. no. 10.
The Grandeur of Chinese Art Treasures. Min Chiu Society Golden Jubilee Exhibition, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 2010-11, cat. no. 97.

Literature: Michael Sullivan, Chinese Ceramics, Bronzes and Jades in the Collection of Sir Alan and Lady Barlow, London, 1963, pl. 41, no. C178.
Jan Wirgin, 'Sung Ceramic Designs', Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, no. 42, 1970, pl. 61c.
W.B.R. Neave-Hill, Chinese Ceramics, Edinburgh and London, 1975, pl. 60.
Basil Gray, Sung Porcelain and Stoneware, London, 1984, pl. 48.

The Sir Alan Barlow Ding Bottle
Regina Krahl

The Ding kilns created some of the most prestigious ceramics in the Northern Song (960-1127) and Jin (1115-1234) dynasties, which enjoyed popularity not only at the Northern Song and Jin imperial courts but even, as has recently been discovered, at the court of the Southern Song (1127-1279), located far away in Hangzhou in south China. Ding wares are among the most delicately potted vessels, and their fine near-white body, thin, translucent, ivory-tinged glaze, and understated decoration give them an elegant and precious appearance and a distinctive identity.

That they were used at court is attested by inscriptions on handed-down Ding pieces as well as excavated fragments. Besides pieces incised before firing with the characters guan (‘official’), xin guan (‘new official’), Shangshiju (‘Palace Food Service’), Shangyaoju (‘Palace Medical Service’), etc., many examples have been discovered that were identified by carved inscriptions after firing, such as Deshou and Deshouyuan, a reference to the Deshou Hall, the residence of the Emperor Gaozong (r. 1127-62) after he had abdicated; Fenghua, referring to the Fenghua Hall, the residence of the Emperor's highest-ranking concubine; Huang Taihou Dian [‘Hall of the Emperor’s Mother’], Donggong [‘Eastern Palace’]; and so on (see Ding ci ya ji. Gugong Bowuyuan zhencang ji chutu Dingyao ciqi huicui/Selection of Ding Ware. The Palace Museum’s Collection and Archaeological Excavation, Palace Museum, Beijing, 2012, passim; Hu Yunfa and Jin Zhiwei in Zhongguo gudai baici guoji xueshu yantaohui lunwenji/Symposium on Ancient Chinese White Porcelain, Proceedings, Shanghai, 2005, pp. 285-300 and pls 152-232; and Kobayashi Hitoshi in Ding Ware. The World of White Elegance: Recent Archaeological Findings, Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, 2013, pp. 218-242).

Most of the pieces and fragments thus identified are, however, bowls and dishes. Ding bottles, vases or jars, in fact any upright shapes, were extremely rarely produced by the Ding white ware kilns around Baoding city in Hebei province, which had specialised in the production of round, open shapes. Open shapes could quickly be thrown on the potter’s wheel and manufactured in large quantities. Closed, upright shapes, especially with a tall slender neck as seen on the present vase, represented a much greater challenge, requiring precision in throwing to make the separately thrown parts fit, and diligence in joining to ensure neat and firm alignment, and were much more likely to collapse or tilt in the kiln. They are exceedingly rare.

Only one example closely comparable to the present piece appears to be preserved, a bottle from the Qing (1644-1911) court collection and still remaining in the Palace Museum, Beijing, slightly smaller (22 cm) and of somewhat different proportions, with a straight, cylindrical neck and more globular body, similarly swiftly incised with single and double outlines and combed details with a sketchy design, but depicting a pair of dragons. The Palace Museum bottle has been illustrated over and over, since it seems to have no pair, not even among the material excavated from the Ding kiln sites; see, for example, The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Porcelain of the Song Dynasty, Hong Kong, 1996, vol. 1, pl. 35; Ding ci ya ji, op.cit., pl. 36; or Chūgoku tōji zenshū [Complete series on Chinese ceramics], vol. 9, Kyoto, 1981, pl. 71.

Another long-necked Ding bottle, but of very different profile, with a mallet-shaped body with angled shoulder, and with reduced rim, is preserved in the Sir Percival David Collection in the British Museum, also frequently exhibited and illustrated, for example, in the International Exhibition of Chinese Art, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1935-6, cat. no. 1173; together with the present piece, in the Oriental Ceramic Society Sung exhibition, 1960, op.cit., cat. no. 16, pl. 14; or in Stacey Pierson, Song Ceramics. Objects of Admiration, London, 2003, pl. 1.

The high esteem in which a Ding bottle was held at the Qing court can be gleaned from a much smaller (15.9 cm) undecorated example with tall slender neck, everted rim and depressed globular body, with a low footring instead of a splayed foot, preserved in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, which was inscribed on the base with a poem by the Qianlong Emperor dated to the year 1773, apparently the only comparable piece preserved in the National Palace Museum; see Yu Peichin, De jia qu. Qianlong Huangdi de taoci pinwei/Obtaining Refined Enjoyment: The Qianlong Emperor’s Taste in Ceramics, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2012, cat. no. 4.

No comparable bottle appears to have come to light either at the international white ware symposium organised by the Shanghai Museum in 2002 and recorded in the Proceedings, Shanghai, 2005, op.cit.

This long-necked bottle shape probably derived from a form popular throughout the Tang dynasty (618-907) at the three main kiln centres of Hebei and Henan, Xing, Ding and Gongxian, which can be traced back to the 5th century and is ultimately derived from a metal shape; see Zhongguo taoci quanji [Complete series on Chinese ceramics], Shanghai, 1999-2000, vol. 4, pl. 246 for a green-splashed white bottle excavated from a tomb of AD 475; vol. 5, pl. 173, for a pure white stoneware bottle from a Tang site in Henan province (fig. 1); and Yu Wenrong in Proceedings, Shanghai, 2005, op.cit., p. 567, figs 8 d and e, where the latter bottle is compared to a bronze example.

fig. 1. White stoneware bottle, Tang dynasty© National Museum of China, Beijing

Sir James Alan Noel Barlow (1881-1968), 2nd Baronet, Knight of the Order of the Bath and Knight of the Order of the British Empire, was a renowned British civil servant. Together with his wife Nora (1885-1989), granddaughter of the English scientist Charles Darwin, who had developed the Evolutionary Theory, he collected both Chinese and Islamic art. He was an early member of the Oriental Ceramic Society, which he generously supported for decades, serving for a record 28 years on the Council and a record 18 years as its President, from 1943 to 1961, a period when the Society mounted many of its most important exhibitions. Since Sir Alan believed in making his pieces available to a wider public and particularly to students, upon his death his extensive collection of Chinese archaic bronzes, ceramics and jades, went first on display at the Gulbenkian Museum of Oriental Art at Durham University; from 1974 onwards it was installed in a special, purpose-built gallery at the newly founded University of Sussex near Brighton; and in 2012 it was transferred to the Ashmolean Museum, part of Oxford University, where highlights are currently on display. Although the bulk of the collection thus remained intact, the present bottle was one of the very few items not included in the Trust that owns the bulk of the collection, but kept in the family, probably until 1986, when it was first sold in London.

Sotheby's. Song Ceramics from a Distinguished Private Collector, Hong Kong, 05 Apr 2017, 11:00 AM

Lot 3508. A ‘Huanghuali’ Dressing Case With Carved Doors And Gilt-Bronze Fittings, Late Ming – Early Qing Dynasty, 37 x 39.1 x 32.1 cm. Est. HK$800,000 – 1.2 million / US$103,000 – 154,000. Photo: Sotheby's.

of rectangular form, constructed with straight sides resting on a slightly larger base with a stylised lotus lappet border, surmounted by a cover hinged on the back of the dressing case, the front with a pair of doors hinged to the sides with cusped and finely detailed gilt-bronze plates, embellished across the front doors and cover with a similarly cusped and detailed gilt-bronze plate with a lock receptacle and stylised ruyi-shaped hasp, above cusped plates and stylised pulls, the doors skillfully carved with scenes of figures and pavilions, possibly depicting the Queen Mother of the West and the King of the East seated amongst their celestial court officials, further rendered with deer and cranes, set with five drawers behind the doors, each with a gilt-bronze plate and pull, the sides of the dressing case flanked by a pair of stylised loop handles - 37 by 39.1 by 32.1 cm, 14 1/2  by 15 3/8  by 12 5/8  in.

Exhibited: In Pursuit of Antiquities: Thirty-fifth Anniversary Exhibition of the Min Chiu Society, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1995-96, p. 300.
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., 1997-2001.
Grace Wu Bruce, Chan Chair and Qin Bench: The Dr S. Y. Yip Collection of Classic Chinese Furniture II, Art Museum, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1998, pp. 182-183.

Literature: Grace Wu Bruce, ‘Examples of Classic Chinese Furniture: #5. Small Portable Treasures’, Oriental Art, London, Autumn 1993, p. 51.

Note: The piece is made in honey-coloured precious huanghuali wood throughout, including the interior tray and all the interior drawers which are usually made of less expensive soft or tieli wood. Unlike standard design guanpixiang, it possesses many unusual features. The deeply carved doors with scenes of figures and pavilions, as well as the stylised lotus base are most unusual. The gilt-bronze hinges, pulls and handles, are also almost unknown in huanghuali pieces. It may be possible that this piece was made in the Palace Workshop.

The carved scene depicted might be that of the Queen Mother of the West and the King of the East seated amongst their celestial court officials standing in attendance. The Queen Mother of the West and the King of the East are considered in Daoism to be those in control of life or death and to have the power to communicate with heaven. Deer and cranes, carved on the lower part of the doors are often depicted carrying celestial figures to heaven.

Sotheby'. Portable Treasures – The Dr S.Y. Yip Collection, Hong Kong, 05 Apr 2017, 02:00 PM

Lot 3305. An Outstanding And Extremely Rare Celadon Jade Figure Of An Elephant, Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-26 AD), 8.4 cm. Est. HK$5– 7 million / US$641,000 – 897,000. Photo: Sotheby's.

skilfully worked in the round as an Asian elephant standing foursquare on its short legs with its long trunk curled to its left and its tail swished to its right, the animal depicted with characteristic dorsal bumps flanked by floppy ears, the corpulent body rendered gravitating towards the ground and delicately detailed with incisions to depict folds of wrinkles, the lustrous pale celadon-tinged white stone with calcified buff areas - 8.4 cm, 3 1/4  in.

Provenance: The Hei-Chi Collection.

Literature: Jiang Tao and Liu Yunhui, Jades from the Hei-Chi Collection, Beijing, 2006, p. 116.

Note: This superbly carved sculpture of a standing elephant is modelled in the round from an oblong greenish-white jade. Depicted with small eyes, large ears, a long nose that curls backwards, the elephant is further portrayed with short legs and a protruding abdomen, appearing tranquil and approachable.

During the Shang Dynasty, the Central Plain of China enjoyed a warm and humid climate and provided a suitable habitat for elephants. The archaeological ruins of Anyang, one of the Shang capitals, yielded large amounts of ivory and elephant bones, indicating that the Shang nobility sacrificed elephants in their rituals. The Lüshi Chunqiu [Spring and Autumn Annals of Master Lü] records the Shang people’s taming of elephants, 'The Shang people trained elephants, which they used to oppress the Eastern Yi people. The Duke of Zhou consequently chased them with his armies to the Jiangnan region.' The Tomb of Fu Hao yielded two jade elephants carved in the round, measuring 6-6.5 cm in length and 3-3.3cm in height, with upward-curling noses, slightly open mouths, eyes in the form of the chen character, ears close to the shoulders, and incised throughout with double lines. See Zhongguo gu qingtongqi xuan/A Selection of Ancient Chinese Bronzes, Beijing, 1976, pl. 91.

Han dynasty jade elephants carved in the round have yet to be found archaeologically, but some Han dynasty gilt-bronze elephants are extant, including four excavated in an Eastern Han burial site at Lijiacun, Koudian, Yanshi, Henan. See Nanjing Museum and Xuyi Cultural and Media Bureau, 'Jiangsu Xuyiai xian Dayunshan Xihan Jiangdu wangling yihao mu [Royal Mausoleum No. 1 of the Vassal King of Jiangdu State of the Western Han dynasty]', Kaogu/Archaeology, Beijing, vol. 10, 2013, p. 36, fig. 57:1. Measuring 4.2 cm in length and 3.5 cm in height, these finely carved pieces are small and light. Together with other bronze animals such as horses, oxen and deer, they were placed in a bronze zun. Another relevant example is a gilt-bronze elephant recently excavated from the tomb of Liu Fei, Prince of Jiangdu of the Western Han Dynasty (and a stepbrother of Liu Che, Emperor Wu of the Han), Dayunshan, Xuyi, Jiangsu. Measuring 30.5 cm in length and 20 cm in height, this carving is depicted with large round eyes, ears pulled back, a long backward-curling nose and a tail that hangs towards the left. Aside from its silver-gilt ivory, the elephant body has a polished surface, with only incised lines of various lengths indicating the folds of its skin on its nose, neck, back, and limbs. This method of linear articulation persisted in Ming dynasty stone sculptures, including the stone elephant along the spirit path of the Xiaoling Mausoleum in Nanjing.

Sotheby's. Beasts of Antiquity – Important Jade Animals from the Chang Shou Studio, Hong Kong, 05 Apr 2017, 11:45 AM

Lot 1107. An Exceptional Junyao Purple And Blue Glazed Tripod Circular Narcissus Bowl, Early Ming Dynasty. Diameter 20.3 cm. Est. HK$8– 12 million / US$1 – 1.5 million. Photo: Sotheby's.

with shallow rounded sides curving down to a flat recessed base supported on three gently flaring ruyi-shaped feet, the rim bordered with a band enclosing evenly spaced rounded studs between two narrow raised ribs, above a further band of studs above the feet, the well-proportioned body skilfully applied with an attractive two-tone glaze, the interior with an even milky lavender-blue glaze with characteristic 'earthworm tracks', the rim and exterior with a rich reddish-purple glaze transmuting to lavender-blue below the lower studs and thinning to a mushroom tone at the raised edges, the feet and base covered with a wash of pale mushroom glaze with light purple mottles in areas, including the feet, the base inscribed with a character liu (six), surrounded by twenty spur marks revealing the pale buff stoneware body - 20.3 cm, 8 in.

Provenance: A private collection, purchased before World War II, and thence by descent.
Sotheby's London, 12th June 2003, lot 108.
J.J. Lally & Co., New York.

An ‘Official Jun’ Narcissus Bowl
Regina Krahl

The flamboyant purple-and-blue glaze combination of Jun flower vessels was one the most daring creations in the history of Chinese ceramics. On the present narcissus bowl these ravishing glazes are not only of a breath-taking vibrancy rarely found on similar pieces, but in addition, they have settled in form of a superb pattern that would seem to be unique. The bright milky-blue glaze on the inside is extremely glossy and shows the characteristic markings that have become known as ‘earthworm tracks’; the rich, mottled purple on the outside is dazzling in itself, but most unusually, it recedes to a bright blue line above the ring foot, before fading to a distinct olive-green that also covers the ruyi feet; and all three feet are ‘beribboned’ by a band of intense ruby-red.

This narcissus bowl, of a shape also known as ‘drum nail’ basin, belongs to a distinct group of flower vessels known as 'numbered Jun' wares, mostly of mould-made shape, glazed either in blue only or in blue and purple, and generally inscribed on the base with numerals from one to ten that seem to related to the vessels’ sizes. The dating of these Jun ware flower receptacles has long been debated and continues to divide opinions to this day. Two different schools of thought have proposed an attribution either to the late Northern Song dynasty (960-1127) or to the late Yuan (1279-1368) or early Ming (1368-1644) period; for an exhaustive account of these different view points see Li Baoping, ‘Numbered Jun Wares: Controversies and New Kiln Site Discoveries’, Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, vol. 71, 2006-7, pp. 65-77.

The Northern Song date, adhered to by many eminent Chinese scholars, was supported by a surface find near the kiln sites of a mould fragment for coins bearing the Xuanhe reign name (1119-1125), made of Jun ware clay. The later dating, at first proposed mainly by Western scholars, is based on the obvious stylistic discrepancies between these flower vessels and the ceramic styles known from the Northern Song, and a much closer affinity with flower receptacles in celadon and blue-and-white from the Longquan and Jingdezhen kilns, which can be attributed to the late Yuan or early Ming dynasty. At scholarly conferences on the subject in Yuzhou in 2005 and in Shenzhen in 2006 the date of the coin mould itself has come under scrutiny and was basically discredited, since it was shown not to be a mould for actual coins of that period and to bear a spurious reign mark of an even earlier period on the reverse. Scientific tests of sherds undertaken by the Shanghai Museum have pointed to a late Yuan or early Ming date. And a newly discovered Jun ewer very similar in shape to a gold ewer from the tomb of King Zhuang of Liang, buried in 1441, has also been offered as evidence for a later dating.

Since a large body of 'numbered Jun' wares is remaining from the Chinese Imperial collection both in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, and the Palace Museum, Beijing, often inscribed after firing with the names of Palace halls, a Yuan date seems less likely, since virtually no Yuan ceramics formed part of the Qing court collection. The production of these flower vessels fits better into the early Ming dynasty, and they may well have been officially commissioned for the newly built imperial palace in Beijing in the Yongle period (1403-24). 

Their official status is also proposed in a recent exhibition by the Palace Museum, Beijing, where ‘numbered’ Jun flower vessels are identified as ‘display-type’ (chenshe lei) official Jun (guan Jun) wares (Jun ci ya ji. Gugong Bowuyuan zhencang ji chutu Junyao ciqi huicui/Selection of Jun Ware. The Palace Museum’s Collection and Archaeological Excavation, Palace Museum, Beijing, 2013, p. 168ff.). Although concerning their dating it is stated that “this research is a complicated academic problem which cannot be solved immediately”, the Northern Song attribution has been retained. The interpretation of Jun wares to represent official wares of the Northern Song is surprising, since the term ‘Jun’ is not mentioned in connection with ceramics in any pre-Ming text, and the traditional ranking of Jun wares among the five ‘classic wares of the Song’ also dates from the Ming dynasty.

The catalogue illustrates three ‘drum nail’ basins of classic type, similar to the present piece, from the Palace Museum collection, all slightly larger but of less vivid colouration (pls 94-96 and p. 343, figs 14-1 and 14-2, fig. 1), together with fragments excavated from the kiln site (pls 97-98 and p. 343, fig. 13). Further illustrated are four later copies, which differ in proportions and firing method, here attributed to the Yuan to early Ming dynasty, three of them in the Palace Museum collection (pls 113, 115 and 116 and p. 343, figs 15-1 and 15-2) and one excavated in Yuzhou city (pl. 114 and p. 343, figs 12-1 and 12-2); as well as later copies attributed to the Yongzheng period (pls 126-127), to the Shiwan kilns (pl. 125), and to the Yixing kilns (pl. 145), all in the Palace Museum collection.

fig. 1. Junyao rose-violet-glazed tripod flowerpot with drum nails design, Northern Song dynasty© Palace Museum, Beijing

A Northern Song date is also upheld in the excavation report of the Jun kiln sites, where a large number of fragments of ‘drum nail’ narcissus bowls and other numbered Jun wares have been recovered, supposedly supported by stratigraphic evidence (Yuzhou Juntai yao/The Juntai Kilns in Yuzhou, Zhengzhou, 2008, p. 25, fig. 14, p. 28, fig. 15, and col. pls 16-25). This evidence, however, raises many questions. Five different strata have been distinguished at the sites, which are attributed, respectively, to the Tang (618-907); the early Northern Song (960-?); the mid-Northern Song; the late Northern Song (?-1127); and the Ming (1368-1644) period. This omission of 241 years in the stratigraphy made it possible to attribute the numbered Jun wares to the ‘late Northern Song’ stratum, although the ash pit, which contained most of the numbered Jun fragments, is said to be superimposed above two other ‘late Song’ pits and to lie right below the ‘Ming’ stratum (op.cit., p. 16), and the same stratum contained other ceramics obviously dating from the Yuan or early Ming dynasty, such as sketchily painted ‘Cizhou’ type wares (op.cit., col. pls 40 and 41).

The magnificent glaze of the present piece with its juxtaposition of purple and blue, shows better than most Jun vessels what sparked off the creation of flambé glazes in the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). The Yongzheng Emperor (r. 1723-35) is known to have been particularly enamoured with Jun wares and to have commissioned copies after antique pieces sent from the palace collection to the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen. Several Qing monochromes are believed to have been inspired by pre-Qing Jun wares, and a selection was included in the Palace Museum exhibition 2013, including copies of Yongzheng mark and period (Jun ci ya ji, op.cit., pls 128-136). To create these, Tang Ying, supervisor of the imperial kilns, is recorded to have sent potters to the Jun kilns in Henan to learn from local techniques.

Sotheby's. Chinese Art from Two American Private Collections, Hong Kong, 05 Apr 2017, 10:30 AM

Lot 2. An Exceptional Yellow-Ground, Blue And White 'Gardenia' Dish, Mark And Period Of Hongzhi (1488-1505). Diameter 26.1 cm. Est. HK$2.5 – 3.5 million / US$320,000 – 449,000. Photo: Sotheby's.

the shallow rounded sides rising from a tapered foot to an everted rim, freely painted in shaded tones of cobalt reserved on a rich yellow ground, the interior with a slightly recessed medallion enclosing a leafy branch bearing two five-petalled gardenia blooms and a tightly closed bud, encircled on the cavetto by fruiting branches of pomegranate, crab apple, grape and a beribboned lotus bouquet, all between double-line borders, the underside with a continuous scroll of seven large blooming roses borne on a foliate stem, between double lines at the rim and foot, the base left white and inscribed in underglaze blue with a six-character reign mark within double circles - 26.1 cm, 10 1/4  in.

Provenance: Collection of Sir Percival David (1892-1964), one of a pair.
Collection of The Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London (PDF A773b, pair to A773a) until 1968.
Sotheby's London, 15th October 1968, lot 108 (£5,700).
Bluett & Sons Ltd, London, 1968.
Collection of Roger Pilkington (1928-69), from 1968 (£6,555).
Collection of Maureen Pilkington (1928-2011). 

Bibliography: Margaret Medley, Illustrated Catalogue of Ming Polychrome Wares in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, Section 5, London, 1966, pl. XVII, no. A773.
Roy Davids and Dominic Jellinek, Provenance. Collectors, Dealers and Scholars: Chinese Ceramics in Britain and America, Great Haseley, 2011, pl. 131.

Hongzhi Exquisite Blue-and-Yellow
Regina Krahl

This dish, although an example of a well-known design, must be one of the finest specimens of this pattern and date to have been preserved. The wonderfully soft blue painting of the fruit and flower design and the superb preservation of the yellow glaze, which is known to rub easily with use, make this dish an outstanding representative of Ming imperial porcelain.

The dish belonged to the collection of Sir Percival David and later the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, but was sold at auction since the Foundation had four more dishes of this design, in blue-and-yellow and brown-and-white, with Hongzhi (1488-1505) and Zhengde (1506-21) reign marks, none, however, of comparable quality. The extraordinarily high price paid for the dish at Sotheby’s auction at the time is testimony that its quality was already fully recognised and appreciated half a century ago. 

The gardenia (zhizi) is a flower very rarely depicted on Chinese ceramics and known almost exclusively from the present design. It is not immediately associated with any auspicious meaning, but the highly fragrant flowers were popular with ladies to wear in the hair, and were used for flavouring tea and for preparing cosmetics, and the small fruits of the plant were coveted for dyeing – producing a fine yellow or orange colour – as well as for their medicinal benefits. 

The blue-and-yellow colour scheme was developed in the Xuande period (1426-35), when the first dishes of this design were produced and was taken up again in the Chenghua period (1465-87). In both periods, the base of the dishes was generally still unglazed and the mark inscribed in a horizontal cartouche below the rim. In the Hongzhi and Zhengde reigns the design experienced its peak, and after the Jiajing reign (1522-66), when rare examples were still produced, was totally abandoned. Examples of the first four reigns are illustrated in Soame Jenyns, Ming Pottery and Porcelain, rev. ed., London, 1988, pls 102-104 and col. pl. H, from the British Museum, Riesco collection and Sir Percival David Collection. The Riesco dish, being a companion piece of Hongzhi mark and period, formerly in the collection of Edward Howard Paget, was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 27th November 2013, lot 3114. 

Blue-and-yellow Hongzhi, Zhengde and Jiajing examples, as well as a blue-and-white Hongzhi dish of this design are illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 4, no. 1674, and vol. 2, nos 683, 684, and 682, the companion dish to the present piece, from the collection of Dr and Mrs Sherman E. Lee and the Reach Family collection, sold in these rooms, 7th April 2011, lot 57. 

The pair to the present dish, which is still in the Sir Percival David Collection in the British Museum, is illustrated in Stacey Pierson, Designs as Signs: Decoration and Chinese Ceramics, London, 2001, pl. 19 (fig. 1); the dish is also illustrated in Margaret Medley, Illustrated Catalogue of Ming Polychrome Wares, Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, 1978, pl. III, no. 26, together with the Zhengde version of the same design, no. 29, and Hongzhi and Zhengde versions of the same design painted in iron-brown on a white ground, nos 27 and 28. 

Underglaze-blue and yellow enamel ‘gardenia’ dish, mark and period of Hongzhi, Sir Percival David Collection© The Trustees of the British Museum

Dishes of this design are also preserved in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included, for example, in Blue-and-White Ware of the Ming Dynasty, book IV, Hong Kong, 1963, pl. 11; and in the Museum’s exhibition Ming Chenghua ciqi tezhan [Special exhibition of Ming Chenghua porcelain], Taipei, 1977, cat. no. 139, together with Xuande and Jiajing examples, cat. nos 138 and 141; in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red, Shanghai, 2000, vol. II, pl. 231, together with Chenghua and Zhengde versions, pls 230 and 233; in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated in Lu Minghua, Shanghai Bowuguan zangpin yanjiu daxi/Studies of the Shanghai Museum Collections: A Series of Monographs. Mingdai guanyao ciqi [Ming imperial porcelain], Shanghai, 2007, pl. 3-71, together with a blue-and-white example, pl. 3-70; in the Baur Collection, published in John Ayers, Chinese Ceramics in the Baur Collection, Geneva, 1999, vol. I, pl. 65, together with an example painted in brown on white, pl. 66; and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illustrated in Suzanne G. Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1989, pl. 152. Compare also the dish of this design of Zhengde mark and period, also from the collection of Roger and Maureen Pilkington, lot 4 in this auction. 

Bluett & Sons bought the dish from Sotheby’s sale of the Percival David Foundation duplicates in 1968 for £ 5,700 for stock. They had a bid from Frederick Knight for £ 5,500, in case he did not get the ‘melon’ ‘palace bowl’, lot 97 in the same sale for £ 6,500, which, however, he did get. Roger Pilkington eventually paid even more, £ 6,555, for the present dish. That a higher price could be asked for this Hongzhi piece than for a Chenghua ‘palace bowl’ reflects the outstanding quality of this dish.

Sotheby's. Yellow-Ground Wares from the Collection of Maureen Pilkington, Hong Kong, 05 avr. 2017, 10:00 AM 

CAMBRIDGE.- The Fitzwilliam Museum opened a major new exhibition that reveals the central place of religion in the Italian Renaissance home from March 7 - 4 June 2017. ‘Madonnas and Miracles’ shows how religious beliefs and practices were embedded in every aspect of domestic life. Challenging the idea of the Renaissance as a time of increasing worldliness and secularization, the exhibition shows how the period’s intense engagement with material things went hand in hand with its devotional life. A glittering array of sculptures and paintings, jewellery, ceramics, printed images and illustrated books bear witness to the role of domestic objects in sustaining and inspiring faith. 

The culmination of a four-year European-funded project, ‘Madonnas and Miracles’ presents the fruits of a ground-breaking interdisciplinary investigation carried out at the University of Cambridge by members of the Department of Italian, and the Faculties of History, Architecture and History of Art. Extensive research in neglected archives and collections across the peninsula has transformed our understanding of the daily lives of Renaissance Italians, and has uncovered hundreds of sources that allow curators to tell a new story about the role of the divine in everyday life. 

Sick man in bed prays with rosary, attended by wife and children, 16th century, Il Museo degli ex voto del santuario di Madonna dell’Arco, Naples.

Coinciding with the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, the exhibition confounds the assumption that Catholicism was a religion dominated by priests and ecclesiastical institutions, whilst Protestant families in northern Europe were urged to serve God in their homes. When we peer through the keyhole into the Italian Renaissance home, we find a world in which religion was domesticated in innumerable ways, inflecting every hour of the day and every stage of the life cycle. The intimacy between human and divine was everywhere visible and palpable: in streets and houses, on walls and furnishings, and on a wealth of objects that could be held in the hand. The humblest artisans and the most exalted artists were engaged in producing artefacts that promoted domestic piety. 

Woman with a rosary supplicates the Madonna of Lonigo on behalf of a sick woman, 1510, Madonna dei Miracoli, Museo degli ex voto, Lonigo.

The exhibition presents a domestic sphere that was supercharged with spiritual significance. Many different kinds of artefact—paintings and crucifixes, crockery and cutlery, jewellery, rosaries, statuettes, prayer books and cheap prints—have been brought together so that we can see how they worked collectively to shape the domestic religious sphere. Some of the most powerful items on display are familiar items of daily life turned to divine purposes. An ivory comb from the mid-fifteenth century features a tiny Annunciation scene. A two-handled cup is decorated with the instruments of Christ’s Passion. Conversely, some religious objects served worldly purposes. A rock crystal rosary, created for a wealthy patron, reveals delicate scenes in gilded glass within each of its thirteen beads; it would have functioned simultaneously as a potent religious tool and a breathtaking piece of jewellery. 

Jewelled cross pendant, Italy, 16th century (possibly), gilt metal, set with a sapphire, rubies and pearls, inscribed on reverse: VERBUM CARO (‘The Word Made Flesh’), The British Museum © The Trustees of the British Museum.

The inclusion of some rare surviving items from Jewish homes – for example, a Hanukkah lamp or a spice-box used in a ritual to mark the end of the Sabbath – remind visitors that Renaissance Italy was a multi-cultural society. At the same time, the juxtaposition of sacred objects and books from Jewish and Christian households hint at some of the qualities of domestic devotion that are shared across different faiths.  

Displaying almost fifty objects from the Museum’s own collection, as well as over one hundred important loan works from Europe, the United States and Israel, ‘Madonnas and Miracles’ explores a series of interlinked themes: family life, the physical experience of prayer, the role of the saints, miracles, pilgrimage and religious reform. The exhibition demonstrates that domestic religion at the time was well attuned to the needs of ordinary lay-folk, as they experienced the crises and anxieties of everyday life. The point is being driven home by one of the highlights of the show: a selection of ex-voto images drawn from shrines across Italy and never before displayed in the UK. Thousands of these roughly painted boards, originally created to give thanks for miracles were produced in the period. Treasured for their spiritual significance rather than for their artistic value, sizeable collections still exist at many Italian shrines, and the practice of making ex-votos continues to this day. These images of worshippers at moments of extreme physical peril provide moving testimony to the Renaissance fascination with the miraculous, in its intersection with everyday domestic life.  

Attr. Giovanni di Nicola di Manzoni dal Colle, Inkstand with The Nativity, Tuscany, Colle Val d’Elsa, c.1509–10, tin-glazed earthenware (maiolica), Cambridge, The Fitzwilliam Museum, C.2179-1928, Dr J.W.L. Glaisher Bequest  © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

During the Renaissance, strong ties bound members of a family to their household Madonna, which might be embodied in painting, print, sculpture or figurine. The image of Mary, often displayed on the wall of a bedroom or above a threshold, provided comfort and security to residents of the home as well as offering them a focus for their devotions. The exhibition shows how the Madonna also functioned as a role-model for motherhood and parenting. This theme is intimately depicted in a favourite painting from the Fitzwilliam’s collection, Pinturicchio’s Virgin and Child with St John, which portrays Mary teaching Jesus to read. A polychrome wooden doll of the Christ Child from Camerino left Italy for the first time to be displayed in the exhibition. Many women in Renaissance Italy possessed similar dolls, which were dressed, undressed, handled and kissed, mimicking the Virgin’s maternal bond with Christ. The Camerino doll continues to be an object of veneration, looked after and dressed by local nuns, and annually revered by crowds of people who queue up to kiss it on the feast of the Epiphany.