A RARE BLUE AND WHITE 'WINDSWEPT' JAR, GUAN
A RARE BLUE AND WHITE 'WINDSWEPT' JAR, GUAN

Details
A RARE BLUE AND WHITE 'WINDSWEPT' JAR, GUAN
MING DYNASTY, CIRCA 1450

Well painted around the rounded body in the 'windswept' style with a landscape scene to depict an official flanked by two young attendants on an upper storey of a terraced pavilion, in anticipation of three horsemen approaching in the distance, followed by their servants carrying on their shoulders long poles suspending vases and wrapped boxes, a qin and a sword, bordered by a band of upright leaves around the tapered foot and scrolling peony flowers on the shoulder, the short neck rim decorated with a band of geometric hexagonal pattern below a lipped mouth rim (rim hairlines, crack to luting line above foot)
14 3/4 in. (37.4 cm.) high, box
Provenance
Manno Art Museum, no. 475

Lot Essay

The present jar belongs to a group of large blue and white jars and meiping of the 14th-16th centuries, depicting figures in landscapes and garden settings, that are taken from traditional literature and popular drama. The panoramic landscape scene is comparable to handscroll paintings of the early Ming period, although on the ceramic painting it required the joining of the scene at one side of the body by a series of stylised cloud scrolls to bring about an element of continuity.

Compare with a similar scene on a jar illustrated in Sekai Toji Zenshu, Shogakukan, 1976, vol. 14, pl. 35; where other jars are illustrated to demonstrate the varied combination of minor decorative bands, ibid., p. 231. The subject matter of these minor bands are alternated by application of flower scrolls, cartouches or turbulent waves on the shoulder, and upright plantain leaves, turbulent waves or floral scrolls around the tapered foot.

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