A MING BLUE AND WHITE STEM BOWL

Details

A MING BLUE AND WHITE STEM BOWL
CHENGHUA

The exterior of the deep, rounded bowl decorated below the slightly everted rim with a continuous lotus scroll bearing six blossoms, each positioned below one of the bajixiang, with a band of petal lappets below, the interior with a central medallion of a stylized lotus pond below a broad band of lingzhi scroll which fills the well, all within double-line borders, the whole raised on a slightly spreading pedestal foot encircled at its base by a band of classic scroll, firing flaw in foot rim--6 9/16in. (16.6cm.) diam., box

Exhibited

Baltimore, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Born of Earth and Fire, Chinese Ceramics from the Scheinman Collection, September 9-November 8, 1992, no. 80

Further details

See illustrations of two views

Lot Essay

The Xuande prototypes for the designs on this stemcup can be seen in the lingzhi scroll in the interior of a stem bowl and the bajixiang supported on lotus scroll encircling the exterior of a bowl, both included in the Illustrated Catalogue of Ming Dynasty Porcelain in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, pls. 77 and 70. The lingzhi scroll can also be seen encircling the exterior of a Xuande bowl in the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, Kodansha, 1982, vol. 8 no. 220