A Rare Inscribed White-Glazed 'Monk's Cap' Ewer, Sengmao Hu. Ming Dynasty, Yongle Period - Photo Sotheby's
the compressed globular body rising from a splayed foot to a flared cylindrical neck, surmounted by a galleried monk’s cap rim with a small lug on the interior, the tall spout of semi-circular section extending the full length of the neck, the wide strap handle with a ruyi-shaped terminal and a ruyi-shaped tab on top incised in iron-red with the Arabic inscription reading Shah Jahan Ibn Shah 1503, corresponding to AD 1643, applied overall with a rich white glaze; 19.3cm., 7 5/8 in. Estimation: 80,000 - 120,000 GBP
PROVENANCE: Collection of Shah Jahan, India (r. 1627-1658).
An Indian Private Collection (until circa 1980).
A Swedish Private Collection.
NOTE DE CATALOGUE: Shah Jahan’s Monk’s Cap Ewer. Regina Krahl
Monochrome white monk’s cap ewers from the imperial porcelain kilns at Jingdezhen were created for the Yongle Emperor (r. 1403-24) to be used in Tibetan Buddhist rituals performed either at court in the then capital, Nanjing, or in Tibet proper. The present piece subsequently reached the court of another important Asian ruler, Shah Jahan of India, the creator of the Taj Mahal. The Mughal ruler, who reigned from 1627 to 1658, amassed a sizeable collection of fine Chinese porcelains as well as exquisite jades, several of which are remaining, identified by an engraved cartouche bearing his name, like on the present piece.
By far the most famous piece bearing Shah Jahan’s engraved cartouche is a Mughal jade wine cup in the Victoria & Albert Museum, inscribed with a year equivalent to AD 1657 (Robert Skelton, ‘The Shah Jahan Cup’, Victoria and Albert Museum Bulletin, vol. II, no. 3, July 1966, pp. 109-10). Other Chinese porcelains formerly in his collection are a blue-and-white dish of the Yuan dynasty (AD 1279-1368) and a white one of the early Ming (AD 1368-1644), both engraved with Shah Jahan’s name and the former with a date corresponding to AD 1652/3, both preserved in the Asia Society, New York, from the John D. Rockefeller 3rd collection, see Denise Patry Leidy, Treasures of Asian Art: The Asia Society’s Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, New York, 1994, pls 161 and 162.
Monk’s cap ewers derive their shape from Tibetan ewers made of metal or wood that may have been placed in front of Buddhist altars filled with provisions or with water for use in ablutions, as is suggested in a somewhat later Tibetan painted textile depicting Avalokiteshvara and other deities, behind an altar set with bowls of fruit, a flower vase, pearshaped bottles and a monks cap ewer; see the exhibition catalogue Defining Yongle. Imperial Art in Early FifteenthCentury China, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2005, pl. 36.
Ewers of this form appear to have been produced in porcelain since the Yuan dynasty and became a standard vessel shape of the imperial kilns in the Yongle (AD 1403-24) reign, when the emperor actively supported Tibetan Buddhism. In AD 1407 he invited the most influential Tibetan lama, Halima (AD 1384-1415) of the Karma-pa sect to the capital Nanjing to perform religious services for his deceased parents, and on the occasion commissioned lavish gifts for him from the imperial workshops. More than fifty porcelain ewers of this form were recovered from stratum five of the Yongle waste heaps of the Ming imperial kiln site, believed to date from around AD 1407, both plain or with incised decoration; see 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, p. 62, where a white monks cap ewer with flower scrolls from the site is illustrated, cat. no. 8. A rare white piece with a Yongle reign mark incorporated into an engraved flower scroll on the neck is illustrated in Regina Krahl, ‘The T.T. Tsui Collection of Chinese Ceramics’, Orientations, December 1989, p. 39, figs 14 and 14a; and a ewer still remaining in Tibet, in the Tibet Museum, was included in the exhibition Treasures from Snow Mountains. Gems of Tibetan Cultural Relics, Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, 2001, cat. no. 88.
Monochrome white porcelain was so important in the Yongle period that the milky-translucent glaze seen on this ewer was specially created and used exclusively for monochromes. Particularly lush in appearance and smooth and soft to the touch, it has become known as ‘sweet-white’ (tianbai).
For a white Yuan prototype of this form but of different proportions and with the usual transparent glaze used at Jingdezhen at that time, excavated from a tomb in Haiding district, Beijing, and now in the Capital Museum, Beijing,see Zhongguo taoci quanji [Complete series on Chinese ceramics], Shanghai, 1999-2000, vol. 11, pl. 62.
Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art. London | 07 nov. 2012 www.sothebys.com