Lot Essay
Underglaze-red-decorated porcelain arose in the Yuan Dynasty in China and became widely appreciated in the Ming. While underglaze-red was not uncommon in the Yuan and beginning of the Ming, its scale of production did not increase greatly into the later centuries, as did that of blue and white porcelain, in large part because of the difficulty of controlling the color in firing. Many of the very finest underglaze-red-decorated porcelain appear to have been made in the early Ming, during the Hongwu period. The rich, bright, coppery-red tone of the underglaze-red on this ewer is particularly successful, not showing any of the grayish coloring to which it was prone
The use of a single dragon and its large, bold size is rare on a ewer of this form and would indicate an Early Ming (Hongwu) date, as the small wine pots of this shape found in the Yongle strata of the waste heaps at the Ming Imperial kilns at Jingdezhen appear to be decorated with two small dragons. A number of these ewers were included in the exhibition, Imperial Porcelain of the Yongle and Xuande Periods Excavated from the Site of the Ming Imperial Factory at Jingdezhen, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1989, Catalogue, no. 14 (sweet white glaze over two incised dragons), no. 28 (two incised dragons under a green glaze reserved on a yellow ground), no. 34 (two dragons in underglaze blue) and no. 35 (two dragons reserved in white on a copper-red ground). The decoration on these Yongle examples is also more cluttered, with more clouds surrounding the dragons and a lappet border below, the decoration having a different spatial relationship to the body than on the more sparsely decorated Hongwu ewer
Compare, however, a ewer of similar form, also incised with a single, large dragon under a monochrome copper-red glaze and dated to the late 14th century, illustrated by R. Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collction, vol. II, London, 1994, no. 651. The glaze on this ewer appears to have a slightly orangy tone, as does the red on the present example. Also, the spouts of both examples evidence a slight kink in the curve of the spout and share a slightly flared foot which appears to be broader and shallower than that of the Yongle and later examples
The style of the dragon is somewhere between the similarly bold, almost muscular dragon, painted with scales and bristly whiskers, but with three claws, in underglaze red on a vase of Yuan date in the Avery Brundage Collection, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, illustrated in Sekai Toji Zenshu, rev. ed., Japan, 1976, vol. 14, pl. 6 and the more attenuated five-clawed, scaly dragon, also painted with horizontal stripes above each foot, found on a fragment of a dish at the site of the palace of Hongwu at Nanjing, illustrated in Wenwu, 1976:8, col. pl. 1. This latter dragon and the one on the present ewer also share a typical feature found on Hongwu dragons, a separation of the head from the body, which can be seen through the sparse hairs of the mane
The use of a single dragon and its large, bold size is rare on a ewer of this form and would indicate an Early Ming (Hongwu) date, as the small wine pots of this shape found in the Yongle strata of the waste heaps at the Ming Imperial kilns at Jingdezhen appear to be decorated with two small dragons. A number of these ewers were included in the exhibition, Imperial Porcelain of the Yongle and Xuande Periods Excavated from the Site of the Ming Imperial Factory at Jingdezhen, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1989, Catalogue, no. 14 (sweet white glaze over two incised dragons), no. 28 (two incised dragons under a green glaze reserved on a yellow ground), no. 34 (two dragons in underglaze blue) and no. 35 (two dragons reserved in white on a copper-red ground). The decoration on these Yongle examples is also more cluttered, with more clouds surrounding the dragons and a lappet border below, the decoration having a different spatial relationship to the body than on the more sparsely decorated Hongwu ewer
Compare, however, a ewer of similar form, also incised with a single, large dragon under a monochrome copper-red glaze and dated to the late 14th century, illustrated by R. Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collction, vol. II, London, 1994, no. 651. The glaze on this ewer appears to have a slightly orangy tone, as does the red on the present example. Also, the spouts of both examples evidence a slight kink in the curve of the spout and share a slightly flared foot which appears to be broader and shallower than that of the Yongle and later examples
The style of the dragon is somewhere between the similarly bold, almost muscular dragon, painted with scales and bristly whiskers, but with three claws, in underglaze red on a vase of Yuan date in the Avery Brundage Collection, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, illustrated in Sekai Toji Zenshu, rev. ed., Japan, 1976, vol. 14, pl. 6 and the more attenuated five-clawed, scaly dragon, also painted with horizontal stripes above each foot, found on a fragment of a dish at the site of the palace of Hongwu at Nanjing, illustrated in Wenwu, 1976:8, col. pl. 1. This latter dragon and the one on the present ewer also share a typical feature found on Hongwu dragons, a separation of the head from the body, which can be seen through the sparse hairs of the mane