A VERY RARE WUCAI RELIEF-MOULDED RECTANGULAR 'DRAGON' PEN-TRAY

細節

A VERY RARE WUCAI RELIEF-MOULDED RECTANGULAR 'DRAGON' PEN-TRAY
WANLI SIX-CHARACTER MARK WITHIN A RECTANGLE AND OF THE PERIOD

The tray is generously potted with low flaring sides, the interior divided by a shaped pen rest; decorated in underglaze-blue and yellow, black and iron-red enamels with two five-clawed dragons in the larger compartment moulded in low relief and with applied heads, below two further dragons at the sides; the smaller compartment with a full-faced dragon among clouds, the exterior with four dragons above a key-fret band; the glaze with a soft blue tinge stopping at the foot revealing the pale body (enamel flake retouched and rim glaze flake in-filled)
11 3/4 in. (29.9 cm.) long, wood stand, box

來源

Mr and Mrs R. H. R. Palmer, sold Sotheby's London, 27 November 1962, lot 49.
The T. Y. Chao Private and Family Trust Collections of Important Chinese Ceramics and Jade Carvings: Part I, sold in Sotheby's Hong Kong, 18 November 1986, lot 64.

出版

Sekai Toji Zenshu, vol. 14, pl. 205.

展覽

British Council Exhibition of Chinese Art, Edinburgh, 1944, no. 40, and Glasgow, no. 411.
Oriental Ceramic Society, Exhibition of Polychrome Porcelain of the Ming Dynasty, London, 1950, no. 50.
Hong Kong Museum of Art, The S. C. Ko Tianminlou Collection, 1987, Catalogue, no. 75.
Christie's London, An Exhibition of Important Chinese Ceramics from the Robert Chang Collection, 2-14 June 1993, Catalogue, no. 27.

拍品專文

The companion pen tray was included in the exhibition, Ming and Ch'ing Porcelain from the Collection of the T.Y. Chao Family Foundation, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1978, illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 42.

Compare with other similar wucai brush trays, the first from the Hirota Collection, now in the Tokyo National Museum, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics: The World's Great Collections, Kodansha series, vol. 1, 1982, col. pl. 76; the tray in the Percival David Foundation included in the exhibition, Ceramic Evolution in the Middle Ming Period, illustrated in the Catalogue, 1994, no. 22; and another included in the Exhibition of Chinese Ceramic Art, Bronze, Jade etc., Yamanaka & Co. Ltd., London, 1938, illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 58, pl. 9, and sold in Sotheby's London, 11 June 1996, lot 36.

Two other comparable examples without the relief-moulded design on the interior and both decorated with combined dragon and phoenix, are published, one illustrated by A. du Boulay, Christie's Pictorial History of Chinese Ceramics, and sold in these Rooms, the Christina Loke Balsara Collection, 19 January 1988, lot 265; and the other illustrated by R. Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 2, no. 710.

(US$150,000-190,000)