A RARE LATE MING WUCAI GARLIC-HEAD VASE, SUANTOUPING

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A RARE LATE MING WUCAI GARLIC-HEAD VASE, SUANTOUPING
WANLI SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN A LINE AT THE RIM AND OF THE PERIOD

Painted and enamelled around the bulbous body with a lotus pond, reeds and willow trees interspersed with mandarin ducks, herons and other birds between flower-heads beneath a band of ruyi-lappets at the shoulder, with butterflies, a frog and a cricket amongst flower-sprays issuing from ornamental rocks at the neck, the garlic head with an elaborate band of ruyi lappets dividing lotus-spray and pendent jewels (body cracks)
21 5/8 in. (55 cm.) high

Lot Essay

A similar vase from the Palace Museum, Beijing, was included in the Exhibition of Ming and Qing Works of Art (Ming Qing Gongyi Meishu Zhan), 1974, Catalogue, col. pl. 9. Cf. also the example from the Baur Collection, Catalogue, Vol. II, no. A203. Another Wanli-marked wucai vase of the same shape and pattern but with different secondary decorative bands was sold in these Rooms, 13 January 1989, lot 546.

Wucai vases of this shape exist with varying decoration, see Orientations January 1986, p. 27, fig. 15 for a group of garlic-head vases in the Matsuoka Museum, Tokyo.

(US$35,000-45,000)

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