A RARE MING ENGRAVED IRON-RED-DECORATED BLUE AND WHITE BOWL

Details

A RARE MING ENGRAVED IRON-RED-DECORATED BLUE AND WHITE BOWL
ZHENGDE FOUR-CHARACTER MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE WITHIN A DOUBLE CIRCLE AND OF THE PERIOD

The deep, flared sides sharply angled above the shallow ring foot, painted in inky underglaze-blue with two five-clawed dragons chasing around the exterior amidst iron-red clouds between a band of key-pattern above and a single-line border below, the dragon motif repeated in incised lines and in reverse on the interior walls above a single dragon leaping in the center, star crack to body--6 1/8in. (16.5cm.) diam., box

Provenance

Eugene O. Perkins Collection, sold in these rooms June 2, 1989,
lot 13
Percival David Foundation (A705)

Exhibited

Baltimore, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Born of Earth and Fire, Chinese Ceramics from the Scheinman Collection, September 9-November 8, 1992, no. 82

Lot Essay

The companion bowl in the Percival David Foundation (A706) is illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, Kodansha, 1982, vol. 6, no. 120. Another is illustrated by John Ayers, Chinese Ceramics, The Koger Collection, New York, 1985, pl. 56, p. 80; and eight in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, varying slightly in size, are recorded in the Guzong Ciqi Lu, pt. II Ming (2nd vol.), p. 77. A larger example (6 5/8in.) is illustrated by S. Valenstein, The Herzman Collection of Chinese Ceramics, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992, no. 83