YONGLE PERIOD (1402-1425)

This rare and beautiful Yongle basin is a particularly successful melding of Chinese design with a form taken from the Islamic West. The distinctive form of the basin has its origins in the Near East, where it was produced both in metal and in glass. A 14th century Syrian enamelled glass example (d: 29.2 cm.) in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum, New York, is illustrated by John A. Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, Philip Wilson, London, 1981, plate 135, B. Compare also a Syrian/Egyptian brass basin with silver inlay dated to the 14th century in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, illustrated by Feng Xianming, ‘Yongle and Xuande Blue-and-White Porcelain in the Palace Museum’, Chinese Ceramics Selected Articles from Orientations 1982-1998, Hong Kong, 1999, p. 177, fig. 10 (fig. 1); where it is illustrated together with a Yongle blue and white basin in the Palace Museum, Beijing. A further inlaid silver metalwork example dated to 13th-14th century Egyptian Mamluk period is now in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and was exhibited at the Hayward Gallery and published in The Arts of Islam, Arts Council of Great Britain, London, 1976, p. 189, no. 213. The authors of this exhibition catalogue point out that these basins follow a form that was already known in Syria and Egypt in Ayyubid times (AD 1238-40) and refer to one in the same volume, cf. ibid., p. 181, no. 198. This earlier version, however, lacks the very slightly waisted, straight sides and the sharp angle to a flattened rim that is characteristic of the later form that inspired the Chinese porcelain basins. A further example in the collection of Nasser Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah is illustrated in Islamic Art in the Kuwait National Museum, The al-Sabah Collection, Marilyn Jenkins (ed.), London, 1983, p. 94.

Despite the fact that both the Syrian glass example and the Mamluk brass example, mentioned above, both bear decoration in which Arabic calligraphy plays a major role, the Chinese blue and white porcelain versions of this form adopt a very different decorative style. Although the arabesques on the interior base of some of the porcelain basins, and the pinks on the rim of others, have Near Eastern origins, the rest of the decoration appears purely Chinese. The inclusion of such basins in the Chinese imperial collections, and the fact that none appear in the Ardebil collection, and only one in the collection of the Topkapi Saray in Istanbul, illustrated by J. Ayers & R. Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum Istanbul, vol. II, Philip Wilson, London, 1986, p. 516, no. 611, and colour plate on p.421, suggests that these vessels, despite their foreign form, were in fact intended for elite patrons in China and not as export wares.

In the Yongle reign the porcelain vessels of this form were made in a variety of sizes from those with a mouth diameter of 16.5 cm., to those with a mouth diameter of 31.6 cm. The current basin with a mouth diameter of 26.2 cm. can be regarded as middle-sized. The present basin has a band of floral scroll on the everted rim, unlike most other examples painted with a band of turbulent waves.

Several Yongle blue and white basins of varying sizes are in the Qing Court Collection, two examples similar in size in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, are illustrated in Pleasingly Pure and Lustrous: Porcelains from the Yongle Reign (1403-1424) of the Ming Dynasty, Taipei, 2017, one with the more common design of turbulent waves on the rim, no. 130; the other with the same type of floral band as the present example, but has a more stylised flower to the centre of the interior, no. 131 (fig. 2). Two other examples in the Palace Museum, Beijing, are illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Blue and White Porcelain with Underglaze Red (I), Hong Kong, one larger (31.6 cm.) and painted on the interior with a ring of lotus petals containing emblems within a circle of keyfrets, no. 49; the other smaller (16.5 cm.) with similar design on the interior and a band of turbulent waves on the rim, no. 50. Compare also with a similar Yongle blue and white basin (25.6 cm.) from the Tianminlou Collection, sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 3 April 2019, lot 3, which is decorated with a different design of arabesque to the interior below a band of pinks on the rim; and one (26.3 cm.) with a similar design on the interior and a band of waves on the rim from the Le Cong Tang Collection, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 27 November 2017, lot 8002.

The form appears to have survived, perhaps only briefly into the Xuande reign, and an example bearing a Xuande reign mark is published in Chinese Ceramics from the Museum Yamato Bunkakan, illustrated catalogue Series no. 7, Nara, 1977, no. 134. However the decoration on the Xuande vessel is different. The combination of graceful Yongle decoration on this simple, but elegant, Near Eastern form, as seen on the current example produces a particularly attractive vessel.