![An important and extremely rare carved Longquan celadon jar, Yuan dynasty (1279-1368)]()
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Lot 3028. An important and extremely rare carved Longquan celadon jar, Yuan dynasty (1279-1368); 11 3/4 in. (29.8 cm.) high. Estimate HKD 5,000,000 - HKD 7,000,000. Price realised HKD 6,100,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2018
The jar is heavily potted and well carved in relief around the sides with four panels enclosing seasonal flowers: camillia Japonica, peony, lotus and chrysanthemum, above a band of banana-leaf around the base. The shoulders are set with three zoomorphic monster masks modelled in high relief with bulging eyes and brows and reserved on a diapered ground in imitation of woven rattan. The neck carved with diamond-shaped diaper and all panels are conjoined by strapwork borders. The jar is covered overall with a thick glaze of bluish sea-green tone with the exception of the mouth rim, the inside of the base and the foot rim which remain unglazed, four brocade covers, Ming dynasty, Japanese double-wood.
Provenance: The Hisamatsu Family Collection, an important Daimyo family in Ehime prefecture that ruled during the Edo period (1603-1867)
Gifted to the present owner by the Hisamatsu family in 1955 (with a letter included with the jar recording the history).
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Letter from the Hisamatsu Family to the present owner, dating to 1955.
THE PROPERTY OF A JAPANESE PRIVATE COLLECTION
Treasured Jar for the Most Precious Tea – A Rare14th century Longquan Jar
Rosemary Scott, Senior International Academic Consultant Asian Art
It may well be the case that this jar arrived in Japan soon after its manufacture in the Chinese province of Zhejiang in the early Ming dynasty, since such pieces were greatly prized in Japan and many fine Longquan celadons were imported for appreciative Japanese patrons. Important vessels were preserved with care and handed down to succeeding generations, either within families or within temples. The current Longquan jar would have been particularly treasured not only for its rare form, but most especially for the exquisite colour of its glaze – an aspect of fine Longquan celadon wares, which has traditionally been revered by Japanese connoisseurs.
The current jar was gifted to the current owner in 1955 by the important Hisamatsu family, who as daimyo or hanshu in the Edo period (AD 1603–1868) were feudal rulers of Iyo Matsuyama-han – present day Ehime prefecture in Shikoku Island . This significant role was held by 15 generations over a period of some 235 years. The family are related to one of the most famous figures of 16th-17th century Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616), who became the first Shogun of the Tokugawa bakufu (1600-1868). Matsudaira Motoyasu , who changed his name to Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1566, was the son of Odai-no-kata (1528-1602) and Matsudaira Hirotada (1525-49). The second marriage of Tokugawa’s Ieyasu’s mother Odai-no-kata was to Hisamatau Toshikatsu (1526-1587) and the three sons of that marriage were thus half-brothers to Tokugawa Ieyasu. On a visit to the latter’s mother, he bestowed his family name, Matsudaira, on his half-brothers as a sign of their close familial bond, and the half brothers were comrades in arms into the 17th century. It was Tokugawa Ieyasu who sent the family to Sikoku Island, and the son of his third half-brother, Matsudaira Sadayuki (1587-1668), brought prosperity and stability to the region. The Hisamatsu family continued to use the Matsudaira name throughout the Edo period. However, after the end of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868, the family were required by the new Meiji 明治regime to revert to the name Hisamatsu.
The Matsudaira (Hisamatsu) family were keen practitioners of the tea ceremony, and even today, the region of Iyo Matsuyama, over which the family ruled, is still known for the numbers who take part in the tea ceremony. Despite a paucity of surviving records, some 280 tea ceremonies are recorded in the remaining archives for the 66 years from 1812 to 1878. While he was hanshu of Iyo Matsuyama, Matsudaira Sadanao (1660-1720) employed a tea master Joso Soan (1673-1704), who was the 5th head tea master of the Ura-Senke school , which is one of the three most important tea ceremony schools in Japan, which trace their roots to the revered Sen-no-Rikyu (1522-91) – the founder of the wabi style of tea ceremony. Joso Soan designed gardens, tea ceremony utensils and even palaces for Iyo Matsuyama, and his descendants continued to work for the Matsudaira family for more than 170 years. The family continued to hold tea ceremonies and an Ehime prefectural bulletin noted that in 1922, Hisamatsu Sadakoto (1867-1943), who became a high-ranking officer in the Imperial Japanese army, organised a tea ceremony to which he invited the French General Joseph Joffre (1852-1931). The family’s continued appreciation of exceptional works of art used in the tea ceremony can be seen in the fact that in 1922 Hisamatsu Sadakoto is recorded as displaying a triptych by a famous Rinpa painter of the Edo period, while a Chinese Yuan dynasty lacquer box inscribed by the famous lacquer artist Zhang Cheng was used to contain incense and a maki-e lacquer container was used for the tea, which had been arranged by the 11th Ura Senke head tea master Gengen-sai (1810-77).
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Matsuyama Family Castle, Ehime, Shigoku© National Diet Library database
The current jar can be seen against this background of tea connoisseurship and the appreciation of special objects for use in the tea ceremony by the Hisamatsu family. This Longquan celadon jar was reserved for the first fine tea of the year. The tea leaves were picked in spring and were matured in the jar during the summer. The mouth of the jar would have been tightly sealed using a wooden plug covered with several layers of paper, which would have been tied in place. The short neck and flanged mouth of the current jar would have made it particularly suitable for this. One of the surviving records, see below, suggests that such jars may have been suspended under the floor in a net bag – possibly to keep them cool during the heat of summer. The first tea ceremony of the year, known as Kuchikiri-no-chaji (literally ‘mouth cutting tea ceremony’) is held in early November. Before the ceremony the bamboo hedges and water troughs in the garden of the tea room are replaced. In the tea room itself, the paper of the shojisliding doors is replaced and new tatami mats are put on the floor. In preparation for the ceremony, the tea leaf jar is given a fine silk cover called a kuchioi held in place with a decorative rope called a kazario. During the ceremony the silk fabric cover is carefully removed, the paper is cut and the wooden plug taken out to provide access to the tea inside the jar. The new tea leaves are ground into powder with a pestle in a stone mortar before being used to prepare the tea.
It is very rare that a Longquan celadon jar is used for this purpose, however, there are some historical references to such jars. A letter from the famous tea master Sen-no-Rikyu to Shunoku Soen (1529-1611), abbot of the Daitokuji Temple in Kyoto, described the tea utensils used in a tea ceremony held by Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-98) at the emperor’s palace on 7th October 1585. Sen-no-Rikyu noted: ‘...a kinuta tea leaf jar in a net under the floor’. Kinuta in this instance refers to Longquan celadon, as this was the term used for the fine Longquan glaze which was associated in Japan with kinuta (mallet-shaped) vases. Certain inventories such as Matsuya-Meibutsushu , which was compiled by the merchant Matsuya Hisashige (1567 – 1652), and Kokon-Meibutsu-ruiju, compiled by Matsudaira Fumai (1751-1818), the daimyo of Izumo Matsuyama-han, listed Longquan kinuta celadon jars as tea leaf jars. A rare example of such a jar is today preserved in the Seikado Bunko Art Museum, Tokyo. (fig. 1)
![A carved Longquan celadon jar, collection of Seikado Bunko Art Museum]()
fig. 1. A carved Longquan celadon jar, collection of Seikado Bunko Art Museum.
Such was the value placed on the current jar, and those similarly used for the leaf tea of the kuchikiri-no-chaji ceremony, that valuable Ming dynasty brocades were used to provide the decorative top covers of the jar. As noted above, several layers of paper were used beneath the silk cover, which would have protected the precious brocade. The top covers themselves are significant and valuable items, which add greatly to the important history of the jar. Each cover preserved with the current jar is made of a different silk fabric, two of them including so-called ‘flat-gold’ weft threads.
The beautiful cloud-patterned damask cover (fig. 2) represents a design which was especially popular in the Ming dynasty, and became famous as Nanjing yunjin. It was sometimes used for the clothing of members of the Chinese aristocracy, and a robe made from a yellow silk satin damask with this design was excavated from the tomb of Wang Zhiyuan – a relative of Lady Wang, who was Xiaozhen Empress to the Chenghua Emperor (r. 1465-87) – which was found outside the Zhonghua Gate, Nanjing (illustrated in Power and Glory: Court Arts of China’s Ming Dynasty, San Francisco, 2008, p. 70, no. 30). Another fragment of Ming silk damask with this type of design is illustrated by Zhao Feng in Treasures in Silk, Hong Kong, 1999, p. 267, fig. 09.00e. A further fragment of similarly decorated Ming dynasty silk damask was excavated from a Ming dynasty tomb in Jian’gexian, Sichuan province, illustrated by Wu Min in Zhi xiu, Taipei, 1992, p. 216, pl. 153. Two versions of this design were also used for the covers of two volumes of a six-volume Buddhist sutra printed in 1584, when the silks would already have been precious antiques (see S. Vainker, Chinese Silk: A Cultural History, London, 2004, p. 147, pl. 93, second and fourth from the left).
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fig. 2 Silk cover of the current lot.
In the late Yuan and Ming dynasty the yunjing cloud design was also sometimes combined with smaller depictions of the babao Eight Treasures. A late Yuan dynasty example of this design can be seen on a piece of damask cloth illustrated by Gao Hanyu, et al., in Chinese Textile Designs, (Rosemary Scott and Susan Whitfield translators), London, 1986, p. 88, no. 61, while two duan satin damask Ming dynasty examples are illustrated in the same volume on page 107, nos. 85-6. It is interesting to note that this combination of motifs appears to have been the inspiration for the unusually small-scale design on the gold and ivory cover (fig. 3) belonging to the current jar. However, the Eight Treasures were also used in combination with single ruyi heads as on one of the brocades used on a sutra cover from the group discussed above (see S. Vainker, Chinese Silk: A Cultural History, op. cit., far right). They could also be combined with dragon roundels as on at late 14th or early 15th century sutra cover of blue ling twill with gold design illustrated in the same volume on page 155, pl. 99.
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fig. 3. Silk cover of the current lot.
The polychrome damask cloth with cloud-edged roundels set against a complex lattice of blue and green (fig. 4) is both rare and interesting for its association with other media. The ground pattern composed of hexagons entwined with circles is rare amongst textiles, but the same structure can be seen on an imperial blue and white porcelain tile excavated in 1993 from the Xuande strata at the imperial Jingdezhen kilns in Jiangxi province, illustrated in Xuande Imperial Porcelain excavated at Jingdezhen, Taipei, 1998, p. 122, no. F21. The effect of this combination of shapes was to produce an internal form which is reminiscent of that seen in armour, such as that depicted as being worn by Guan Yu in the painting Guan Yu Capturing Peng De (Guan Yu qinjiang tu) by Shang Xi (active c. 1426-35), illustrated by C. Clunas and J. Harrison-Hall in Ming – 50 Years that changed China, London, 2014, p. 27, fig. 5. The internal form had occasionally been used alone as a textile design in the Liao dynasty, as seen on a 10th century jin fabric fragment illustrated by Zhao Feng in Treasures in Silk, Hong Kong, 1999, p. 182, fig. 06.00d.
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fig. 4. Silk cover of the current lot.
The magnificent blue and gold silk brocade used to make the fourth cover (fig. 5) for the current jar has a floral scroll design that has a long history amongst fine Chinese woven silks that goes back at least to the Song dynasty – see for example the Northern Song ivory ling twill damask illustrated by J.C.Y. Watt and A.E. Wardwell in When Silk Was Gold –Central Asian and Chinese Textiles, New York, 1997, p. 49, no. 11. The brocade example used for the jar cover, however, has a boldness that is especially associated with the Yuan and early Ming dynasty. A Ming dynasty deep blue brocade with a similar golden design to that seen on the jar cover is in the collection of the Xinjiang Museum and is illustrated in by Wu Min in Zhi xiu, op. cit., p. 216, lower image. Interestingly, there is a hanging scroll in the collection of the British Museum (see Ming – 50 Years that changed China, op. cit., p. 269, fig. 229), dated to the period AD 1450-1500 and painted either in Ningbo China or in Japan after a Chinese original, which is entitled Tenjin in China and depicts Tōtō Tenjin (Sugawara no Michizane AD 845-903), who was an eminent scholar, poet and politician in the Heian period (AD 794-1185) in Japan, but who fell into conflict with the powerful Fujiwara clan and was demoted. However, after his death, Tenjin came to be revered as the God of Learning. In the British Museum hanging scroll Tenjin is shown wearing a robe edged with a rich brocade very similar to that which forms the blue and gold cover of the current jar.
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fig. 5. Silk cover of the current lot.
Like the shifuku pouches made in Japan to encase prized tea containers and venerated tea bowls, covers for important kuchikiri-no-chaji tea leaf jars, such as the current example, were sometimes made from fine Chinese brocades. The famous tea masters chose to use meibutsugire ‘celebrated textiles’ for these tea ceremony accoutrements, and often the items came to be known by the name of the place or famous person with whom they were associated. These meibutsugire were also used for the fukusa small cloth wrappers used in the tea ceremony, and for mounting hanging scrolls. Among the most valued textiles were those imported from China in period from the 14th to the 18th century. These textiles entered Japan either as kāṣāya (Buddhist clerical robes, ; jiasha in Chinese) brought back by monks returning to Japan from China, or as part of Sino-Japanese trade. As time went on even the smallest fragment of these historical Chinese textiles was treasured and might be used, for example, to embellish the robe of an important person from the military class. The most prized of all the Chinese textiles were those, like the blue and gold silk used as a cover for the current jar, known as – kinran ‘gold robe’ in Japanese, but more often referred to in Chinese as jinjin ‘gold brocade’. This was often a lampas weave in silk and metallic thread, which had a gold (or silver) design, usually produced by incorporating gold applied to fine strips of paper. The famous Japanese tea master Kobori Enshu (AD 1579-1647) became especially fascinated with imported Chinese textiles and used them in the tea ceremony. In 2014 the Kyoto National Museum held an exhibition entitled: Luxurious Imported Textiles: Buddhist Robes and Meibutsugire, which examined this important subject.
The current jar, with its extraordinary glaze, is not only a remarkable example of the finest celadons made in the early Ming dynasty, but is of great significance for its history within an important Japanese family. It is also of cultural significance for the part it has played in major tea ceremony events. The silks from which its decorative covers are made are, in addition, rare and important items in their own right, as well as demonstrating yet another facet of the role played by the decorative arts of China in the Japanese tea ceremony.
Christie's. Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Hong Kong, 30 May 2018
