A VERY RARE LARGE LATE MING WUCAI TEMPLE VASE

PROPERTY FROM AN ASIAN FAMILY COLLECTION

細節

A VERY RARE LARGE LATE MING WUCAI TEMPLE VASE
WANLI SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN A LINE AND OF THE PERIOD (1573-1619)

The tall beaker vase is well painted around the bulbous mid-section with blue and yellow baskets of flowers, on the gently splayed lower section with flowers growing from ornamental rockwork, on the neck with a floral scroll and upright plantain leaves, and around the galleried rim with the reign mark in a cartouche against a classic scroll (minor glaze frits on rim and foot)
26 7/8 in. (68.3 cm.) high, box

拍品專文

The design of the present vase is very rare, with only a small number of comparable examples published. An identical vase is illustrated by A. du Boulay, Christie's Pictorial History of Chinese Ceramics, Oxford, 1984, p. 170, pl. 1, and sold in our London Rooms, 11 December 1978, lot 111; while a smaller vase (32 cm. high) with the same pattern is in the Matsuoka Art Museum, Japan, illustrated in Mayuyama, Seventy Years, vol. 1, Japan, 1976, pl. 916. Compare also a variation on this vase, a Wanli-marked zun-shaped vase enamelled with flower baskets and dragons and phoenix, included in the exhibition Imperial Overglaze-Enamelled Wares in the Late Ming Dynasty, Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, 1995, and illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 27.