A VERY RARE AND UNUSUAL COPPER-RED-DECORATED BLUE AND WHITE ‘DRAGON’ MEIPING

18TH CENTURY

Details

A VERY RARE AND UNUSUAL COPPER-RED-DECORATED BLUE AND WHITE ‘DRAGON’ MEIPING
18TH CENTURY
The heavily potted vase is decorated in rich copper-red with two five-clawed dragons, one shown striding amidst blue clouds interspersed with copper-red flames as it emits a stream of water from its mouth towards the roiling waves below, from which rises the second dragon.
12 ¾ in. (32.3 cm.) high

Lot Essay

Compare the similar meiping, possibly decorated by the same hand, sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 15-16 November 1988, lot 250. Another vase of somewhat different meiping shape, also sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 26 October 2003, lot 136, and now in the collection of Xu Qiming, is illustrated in A Collection of Porcelain, Zhejiang Museum, 2006, pp. 112-13. This meiping, which is dated Yongzheng, has a similar use of blue wash to represent the clouds, but rather than have one dragon rising from the waves, both are amidst the clouds, and the wave band is depicted as wind-tossed and froth-capped rather than the rolling waves of the present meiping.

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