HONGWU PERIOD (1368-1398)

Details

A Rare Early Ming Copper-Red-Decorated Bracket-Lobed Cup Stand
Hongwu period (1368-1398)
The center painted with a central guadrefoil ruyi medallion encircled by a raised collar to support the cup and by a continuous chrysanthemum scroll bearing six blossoms, the petal-molded well decorated with alternating sprigs of lotus and other flowers below a band of classic scroll on the everted, bracket-lobed rim, the petal-molded exterior painted with petal lappets, the copper-red fired to a soft, warm grey
7½in. (19cm.) across

Provenance

Fuller Collection, England.

Literature

A. Du Boulay, Christie's Pictorial History of Chinese Ceramics, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1984, p.148.
S. Little, The Herzman Collection, Hong Kong, 2000, p. 32.

Lot Essay

This type of petal-molded cup stand in both its underglaze red and blue forms originated in the late Yuan dynasty and continued to be produced by the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen under the patronage of the first Ming Emperor, Hongwu.

For a similar example with a blossoming flowerhead medallion in the center see Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol. 8, Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, 1982, pl. 51; and for an example with the same central ruyi medallion, see Chinese Art from the Reach Family Collection, Eskenazi, London, 8-22 December 1989, pl. 31, and China's Jingdezhen Porcelain through the Ages, Ming Dynasty, Beijing, 1998, pp. 37-8.

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