YUAN DYNASTY

Details

A Rare Blue and White Baluster 'Temple' Vase
Yuan Dynasty
Raised on a pedestal foot and painted in underglaze blue of bright tone with a central frieze of the 'Three Friends', prunus, pine and bamboo, with different petal bands encircling the waisted body below and a narrow band of classic scroll on the molded shoulder, the neck painted with flower sprigs and upright leaf tips flanked by a pair of flat cloud-form handles suspending rings
10½in. (26.6cm.) high

Provenance

Charles Russell Collection, sold in London, 12 February 1936, lot 74.
Mrs. Alfred Clark Collection.
Sotheby Parke Bernet, Hong Kong, 14-15 November 1983, lot 91.

Literature

Hobson, R.L., Chinese Ceramics in Private Collections, London, 1931, figs. 293 and 293a.

Exhibited

London, Oriental Ceramic Society, Exhibition of Ming Blue and White Porcelain, 1946, no. 3.
London, Oriental Ceramic Society, Exhibition of Chinese Blue and White Porcelain, 14th to 19th Centuries, 1953, no. 14.
London, Spink & Son Ltd., Exhibition of Blue and White Porcelain from the Collection of Mrs. Alfred Clark, 1974, no. 2.

Lot Essay

It is rare to find flattened, cloud-form, ring-bearing handles on Yuan dynasty vases of this form. Similar ring-bearing handles, but of a flattened 'S'-shape, appear to more frequently occur on pear-shaped vases; see M. Medley, The Chinese Potter, New York, 1976, p. 187, fig. 138, and S.J. Vainker, Chinese Pottery and Porcelain: From Prehistory to Present, New York, 1991, p. 138, no. 101.

For a large jar also decorated with the 'three friends' and dated to the Yuan dynasty, see Mayuyama, Seventy Years, Tokyo, 1976, p. 230, no. 691.

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