Sigisbert Chretien Bosch Reitz was born on 30 February 1860 in Amsterdam. Originally he was trained for a career in commerce, but at the age of 23 he decided he wanted to be a painter. His wanderlust and preference for painting in the open air brought him to various European artists villages such as Pont-Aven, also visited by Gauguin in 1886, and St. Ives, important to the English artscene. Around 1900 he visited the distant country of Japan, an almost mandatory journey for European artists in the fin-de-siecle. For a year he thoroughly studied porcelain, drawings and woodcuts. After his return in Laren in 1901, Bosch Reitz developed his knowledge on Asian Art and subsequently was appointed as the first curator of the Department of Far Eastern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1915, where he remanained until 1927. As a curator he made important purchases for the museum as well as for the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington and the Museum of fine Arts in Boston. In 1928 Bosch Reitz returned to the Netherlands where he lived until his death in 1938. After his death all the paintings and his collection of historical costumes, Japanese prints and porcelain was left to his family. THURSDAY 13 DECEMBER 2012 MORNING SESSION AT 10.30 AM LOTS 481-630 THE PROPERTY OF S.C. BOSCH REITZ (1860-1938) (LOTS 481-495, 684 AND 686)

A set of three Chinese late Ming blue and white 'sea creatures' stem-cups

CIRCA 1600-20

Details

A set of three Chinese late Ming blue and white 'sea creatures' stem-cups
Circa 1600-20
Each modelled after a Xuande period example and decorated to the exterior bowl with the nine hai shou, or 'sea creatures', reserved in white on a ground of swirling blue waves, including a dragon, a lion, a fish, a qilin, an elephant and a horse, the high stem with spreading foot and reserved in white with a pair of rabbits, the interior roundel with a conch, each with Xuande six-character mark to the base
8.1 cm. high (3)

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Lot Essay

Originally four of these cups were in the present collection, of which one was given to the British Museum. Please refer to J. Harrison-Hall, Catalogue of Late Yuan and Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, p. 278, no. 11:5 for a description of the fourth cup.

Each with painted inventory number to the base.
One with label Oosterse Schatten-Rijksmuseum 1954 attached to the base.

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