A RARE POLYCHROME BALUSTER VASE

16TH CENTURY

Details

A RARE POLYCHROME BALUSTER VASE
16th Century
The slender baluster body decorated in underglaze blue, yellow, green and mauve with a cloud collar on the high shoulder and a ruyi band above a wide band of pendant ruyi tabs, with a pair of white-glazed elephant handles detailed in iron-red flanking the tall neck below a band of classic scroll encircling the flared mouth, with resist-glazed dots in mauve, all reserved on a turquoise ground, the interior glazed white
15.7/8in. (40.3cm.) high

Provenance

Parrish-Watson Collection
Walter Blumenthal Collection
Bernard Gimbel Collection
Warren E. Cox

Literature

Warren Cox, The Book of Pottery and Porcelain, New York, 1949, vol. I, pl. 137 (top row right), at which time it was in the collection of Bernard Gimbel and dated probably Wanli period
F.E.C.G. Bulletin, 1952

Exhibited

Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts, The Arts of the Ming, 1952, Catalogue no. 178, dated Hongwu-early Yongle period (circa 1400)

Lot Essay

No other vase with similar decoration appears to be published. The shape is related, however, to three vases dated late Ming in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illustrated by W. E. Cox, op. cit., pl. 137, bottom row. The vase on the left also has elephant handles, but the decoration on all three is foliate. Two of them are fahua type with raised decoration, while the middle vase has a painted design of foliate scroll executed in black and white on a turquoise ground. The shape has obviously evolved from blue and white vases of Yuan and early Ming date. See two other vases from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, also illustrated by Cox, pp. 441 and 448, figs. 653 and 656.