AN UNUSUAL WUCAI-DECORATED BLUE-GROUND BEAKER VASE

16TH/17TH CENTURY

Details

AN UNUSUAL WUCAI-DECORATED BLUE-GROUND BEAKER VASE
16TH/17TH CENTURY
Of zun form, slip-decorated and painted in a wucai palette on two sides with butterflies on the neck, prunus branches on the rounded mid-body and orchids on the spreading foot, the decoration on the latter two separated by white vertical flanges, all reserved on a soft blue ground, the interior glazed white and painted on the inside of the flared mouth with four peony sprays
8 5/8 in. (22 cm.) high

Lot Essay

This unusual archaistic zun shape is seen in various glaze palettes during the Wanli period, and is one of the shapes recorded by Geng Baochang in Ming Qing Ciqi Jianding, Hong Kong, 1993, p. 146, fig. 263. For a zun-form vase very similar to the present example, but without the addition of wucai decoration, see the vase illustrated by I.L. Legeza in the catalogue of the Malcolm MacDonald Collection of Chinese Ceramics, London, 1972, p. 57, pl. CVI, no. 286.

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