A VERY RARE SET OF FOUR MASSIVE MING FAHUA-STYLE FRIEZES

Details
A VERY RARE SET OF FOUR MASSIVE MING FAHUA-STYLE FRIEZES
16TH CENTURY

Each frieze comprising five tiles, dramatically moulded with vigorous three-clawed scaly dragons entwined with scrolling lotus, all in brilliant turquoise, blue, amber and cream glazes (old edge chips, two end tiles not of the original set)--each complete frieze 96 x 15½in. (244cm. x 39cm.) (4)
Provenance
Lucy Gass
Exhibited
The Colonial Pavilion, The Universal Exhibition, Paris, 1937

Lot Essay

Glazed tiles of this type are known to have been used to decorate palace garden walls. For a related but ealier tiled wall decorated with nine coiled dragons located in Dongda Street, Datong City, Shanxi Province, dated Hongwu, see Zhongguo Meishu Quanji, The Crafts, Vol. III, Ceramics, no. 63. For a later similarly decorated wall in the Forbidden City, see Yuan Chongnian, Beijing, The Treasures of an Ancient Capital, p. 128.

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