A FINE AND EXTREMELY RARE MING IRON-RED AND ENAMEL DECORATED ZHADOU

細節

A FINE AND EXTREMELY RARE MING IRON-RED AND ENAMEL DECORATED ZHADOU
ZHENGDE PERIOD (1506-1521)

Strongly potted with a compressed globular lower body raised on a splayed foot and surmounted by a wide flared trumpet mouth, the exterior decorated with eight iron-red fish along two friezes, interspersed with waterweeds and cresting waves highlighted with green enamel, all within iron-red double-line borders
4 1/4 in. (10.8 cm.) high, box, stand

來源

The Edward T. Chow Collection, Part 3, sold in Hong Kong, 19 May 1981, lot 431.

出版

Geng Baochang, Ming and Qing Porcelain on Inspection, Forbidden City Publishing House, 1993, p. 496, pl. 59.

拍品專文

It does not appear that any other Zhengde-period vessels in the form of a zhadou with this decoration have been published, although there exists a number decorated in underglaze-blue or with green and yellow enamels. Compare with a Zhengde-marked blue and white vessel in the National Palace Museum, included in the exhibition Dragon Motifs on Porcelain, Taipei, 1983, and illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 23; a green and yellow example illustrated in Chinese Porcelain: The S. C. Ko Tianminlou Colelction, Part 1, Hong Kong Museum of Art, no. 68; and a coral-red zhadou included in An Exhibition of Important Chinese Ceramics from the Robert Chang Collection, Christie's London, 1993, illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 21.

The decoration on the present lot compares well with that on the bowl in this catalogue, lot 683. The use of the carp or the fish as a decorative motif is significant on many levels, as it is symbolic of abundance and associated with profit. The combination of fish, waves and waterweeds, as seen on the present vessel, became popular in the middle Ming period.