Lot Essay
The pair to the present lot was included in the joint exhibition from the Collections of the Percival David Foundation and C.P. Lin, Elegant Form and Harmonious Decoration, Catalogue, p.61, fig.56, PDF No.A777
The Devanagari script is a Nepalese variant of Sanskrit, although in the present example the characters appear to have been used as decoration
During the Chenghua Emperor's reign, over 780 Tibetan monks enjoyed the privilege of mixing in court and palace circles owing to the Emperor's belief in Tibetan Lamaism. His sympathy for this branch of Buddhism was naturally expressed in the porcelain that he ordered. Consequently, a number of other Chenghua period vessels bear Tibetan inscriptions, most frequently in underglaze-blue. Cf. the Tsui Museum of Art special exhibition A Legacy of Chenghua, Catalogue, nos.C62-C65, C82. For a doucai small bowl with the same distinctive shape as the present lot and also painted and enamelled with emphatically Bhuddistic iconography, cf. idem., no.C94. A similar example to the present lot with the Chenghua mark obscured by a later-added Longqing six-character mark also from the Percival David Foundation, section 5, A 718, was sold in London, 15 October 1968, as the lot following the present example. A small bowl of this type but with a Zhengde mark and of the period, from the British Museum is illustrated by Soame Jenyns, Ming Pottery and Porcelain, pl.70c ii. A cup with comparable decoration from the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, is illustrated in Enamelled Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Catalogue, Vol.1, pl.23.
The Devanagari script is a Nepalese variant of Sanskrit, although in the present example the characters appear to have been used as decoration
During the Chenghua Emperor's reign, over 780 Tibetan monks enjoyed the privilege of mixing in court and palace circles owing to the Emperor's belief in Tibetan Lamaism. His sympathy for this branch of Buddhism was naturally expressed in the porcelain that he ordered. Consequently, a number of other Chenghua period vessels bear Tibetan inscriptions, most frequently in underglaze-blue. Cf. the Tsui Museum of Art special exhibition A Legacy of Chenghua, Catalogue, nos.C62-C65, C82. For a doucai small bowl with the same distinctive shape as the present lot and also painted and enamelled with emphatically Bhuddistic iconography, cf. idem., no.C94. A similar example to the present lot with the Chenghua mark obscured by a later-added Longqing six-character mark also from the Percival David Foundation, section 5, A 718, was sold in London, 15 October 1968, as the lot following the present example. A small bowl of this type but with a Zhengde mark and of the period, from the British Museum is illustrated by Soame Jenyns, Ming Pottery and Porcelain, pl.70c ii. A cup with comparable decoration from the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, is illustrated in Enamelled Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Catalogue, Vol.1, pl.23.