WANLI SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE IN A LINE AND OF THE PERIOD (1573-1619)

The fine quality and decoration of this exceptional fish bowl closely relate it to the celebrated mid-fourteenth-century jars decorated with comparable compositions of fish swimming among aquatic plants. It can also be compared to a Yuan-dynasty prototype in the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, illustrated in Masterpieces of Oriental Ceramics, Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, 1994, p. 54, no. 29, and with another Yuan-period ‘fish’ jar sold at Christie’s London, 11 July 2006, lot 111. A further related example dating to the Wanli period, painted with a similarly elegant design of fish and waterweeds, was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 1 June 2011, lot 1291.

The motif of fish swimming in water naturally lent itself to the rebus Yushui hexie, “May you be as harmonious as fish and water.” Such imagery was particularly auspicious in the context of marriage, where the depiction of a pair of fish further conveyed wishes for fertility and conjugal happiness. The enduring popularity of fish as a decorative motif, especially during later dynasties, also stems from the fact that the word for fish, yu, is a homophone for “abundance” or “surplus,” also pronounced yu. Accordingly, two fish symbolize doubled abundance, while a goldfish, jinyu, suggests an abundance of gold