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Lot Essay
Only two other near identical bowls of this very rare pattern appear to be published, one in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated in Underglaze Blue & Red, Woods Publishing Co., Hong Kong, 1987, pl. 81; and another included in the catalogue The Special Exhibtion of Ch'eng-Hua Porcelain Ware, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2003, p. 44, fig. 18.
A small number of Chenghua blue and white stembowls of this related pattern are published, depicting a pair of similar kui dragons and a single qilin, although none of these bear a reign mark. Such examples include: one in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, illustrated in the catalogue, Blue-and-White Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Book III, Hong Kong, 1963, pl. 6, pls. 6a-6d; one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red (II), The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Commercial Press Hong Kong, 2000, p. 30, pl. 28; one from the collection of H.R.H. Palmer is illustrated by Soame Jenyns, Ming Pottery and Porcelain, Faber and Faber, London, 1953, pl. 64A; and another is illustrated by J.A. Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, no. 29.343, pl. 62 and p. 110 where the author comments on the curious style of dragons on the bowl. A last example was sold in our London Rooms, 10 June 1996, lot 76.
Other Chenghua wares decorated with similar kui dragons include the blue and white dish in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated op. cit., Hong Kong, 2000, p. 9, pl. 7; a blue and white cup with kui dragon roundels included in the the exhibition catalogue A Legacy of Chenghua, Jingdezhen Institute of Ceramics and the T.T. Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1993, p. 210, pl. C61, where a doucai jar with this motif is also illustrated, p. 304, pl. C108, as is a doucai cup, p. 260-261, C86, here the authors state: 'Foliated-dragons (Makara) on Ming imperial porcelains first appeared in underglaze-blue during the Xuande era, and in doucai they made their debut in the Chenghua era'. It has been noted that the semblance of these two versions greatly differs from each other, as the Xuande example looks powerful and full of vitality with its long snouted nose terminating into a ruyi-form mushroom and its mouth grasping a lingzhi-fungus, its paired horns thrust upward while pointing backward, and its scaly body likened to that of a snake or lizard. Completing the image are its four powerful claws. The Chenghua versions are docile and more genially imagined with a tablet-shaped nose resembling an elephant's trunk, curved buffalo-like horns, and animalized body, and three claws; in its mouth it holds a Buddhist baoxiang flower, ibid., p. 260.
A small number of Chenghua blue and white stembowls of this related pattern are published, depicting a pair of similar kui dragons and a single qilin, although none of these bear a reign mark. Such examples include: one in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, illustrated in the catalogue, Blue-and-White Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Book III, Hong Kong, 1963, pl. 6, pls. 6a-6d; one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red (II), The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Commercial Press Hong Kong, 2000, p. 30, pl. 28; one from the collection of H.R.H. Palmer is illustrated by Soame Jenyns, Ming Pottery and Porcelain, Faber and Faber, London, 1953, pl. 64A; and another is illustrated by J.A. Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, no. 29.343, pl. 62 and p. 110 where the author comments on the curious style of dragons on the bowl. A last example was sold in our London Rooms, 10 June 1996, lot 76.
Other Chenghua wares decorated with similar kui dragons include the blue and white dish in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated op. cit., Hong Kong, 2000, p. 9, pl. 7; a blue and white cup with kui dragon roundels included in the the exhibition catalogue A Legacy of Chenghua, Jingdezhen Institute of Ceramics and the T.T. Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1993, p. 210, pl. C61, where a doucai jar with this motif is also illustrated, p. 304, pl. C108, as is a doucai cup, p. 260-261, C86, here the authors state: 'Foliated-dragons (Makara) on Ming imperial porcelains first appeared in underglaze-blue during the Xuande era, and in doucai they made their debut in the Chenghua era'. It has been noted that the semblance of these two versions greatly differs from each other, as the Xuande example looks powerful and full of vitality with its long snouted nose terminating into a ruyi-form mushroom and its mouth grasping a lingzhi-fungus, its paired horns thrust upward while pointing backward, and its scaly body likened to that of a snake or lizard. Completing the image are its four powerful claws. The Chenghua versions are docile and more genially imagined with a tablet-shaped nose resembling an elephant's trunk, curved buffalo-like horns, and animalized body, and three claws; in its mouth it holds a Buddhist baoxiang flower, ibid., p. 260.