MING MONOCHROMES THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN
A FINE AND VERY RARE EARLY MING ANHUA-DECORATED WHITE-GLAZED STEMBOWL

Details
A FINE AND VERY RARE EARLY MING ANHUA-DECORATED WHITE-GLAZED STEMBOWL
INCISED FOUR-CHARACTER YONGLE MARK IN ARCHAIC SCRIPT AND OF THE PERIOD

Thinly potted with deep rounded sides rising to a flaring rim and covered inside and out in a 'sweet-white' glaze, supported on a tall slightly spreading hollow foot, finely decorated in anhua with two full-faced five-clawed dragons around the well, the nianhao within a 'flaming pearl' at the centre of the bowl--6in. (15.1cm.) diam., fitted woven basket

Lot Essay

A stembowl with seemingly identical dragons and reign mark from the Brankston Collection is illustrated by John Ayers, Far Eastern Ceramics in the Victoria and Albert Museum, col. pl. 43. A.D. Brankston illustrates a line drawing of a similar full-face dragon and archaistic reign mark in Early Ming Wares of Chingtechen, fig. 1, where he notes that a bowl in the British Museum from the Franks collection is similarly decorated, as is another bowl from the Eumorfopoulos Collection. Cf. the Oppenheim cup in the British Museum (7-12 276) which is part of the same group.

A stembowl with anhua dragons and a four-character Yongle mark, illustrated in Anthony du Boulay, Christie's Pictorial History of Chinese Ceramics, p. 155 top, and sold in our London Rooms, 11 December 1978, lot 119; and one from the Frederick M. Mayer Collection also sold in our London Rooms, 24 June 1974, lot 82

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