A RARE EARLY BLUE AND WHITE BALUSTER VASE, MEIPING

Details

A RARE EARLY BLUE AND WHITE BALUSTER VASE, MEIPING
YUAN DYNASTY

The body painted with a wide central band of meandering peony, the blossoms alternately depicted upright and pendent and encircled by leafy stems, between diaper and classic scroll borders, the shoulder painted with a peacock and peahen with wings displayed amid a continuous peony meander bearing smaller blooms below a further narrow band of classic scroll, each of the tall, stylized lotus lappets above the foot enclosing a pendent trefoil, dot and ring, the blue of pale silky tone, the white glaze with a blue-green cast
15½in. (39.3cm.) high

Provenance

Literature

J.J.Lally & Co., A Special Exhibition, Chinese Works Of Art, Catalogue, May-June, 1988, no. 54

Lot Essay

An almost identical vase was included in the exhibition, Splendour of Ancient Chinese Art, Selections from The Collections of T.T. Tsui Galleries of Chinese Art Worldwide, Hong Kong, 1996, Catalogue, no. 44, and another is illustrated by John Alexander Pope, Chinese Porcelains From The Ardebil Shrine, Washington, 1956, pl. 25, no. 29.406. Another meiping with the addition of a qilin to the shoulder decoration is illustrated in Chinese Ceramics, A Loan Exhibition of One Hundred Selected Masterpieces, Osaka, March-April, 1961, Catalogue, p. 23, no. 38. An example with phoenix within cloud lappets on the shoulder was included in the exhibition, Beauty and the Selfless Mind, 15th Anniversary Catalogue, Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo, 1981, p. 178, no. 751

The result of Oxford thermoluminescence test no. 866c83 is consistent with the dating of this lot