A PAIR OF LARGE BLACK-GLAZED STONEWARE JARS*

This lot is exempt from Sales Tax. Seller explici… Read more

YUAN AND MING WARES THE DORIS DUKE COLLECTION, SOLD TO BENEFIT THE DORIS DUKE CHARITABLE FOUNDATION

A PAIR OF LARGE BLACK-GLAZED STONEWARE JARS*

MING DYNASTY, 15TH CENTURY

Details

A PAIR OF LARGE BLACK-GLAZED STONEWARE JARS*
MING DYNASTY, 15TH CENTURY
Each stoutly potted with tapering ovoid body, short neck and thick, lipped rim, molded in relief on the shoulder with two characters, neifu (inner palace), covered with a white slip under a clear glaze reserved against the blackish-brown glaze which covers the exterior, interior and base
22½ in. (57.2 cm.) high (2)

Special notice

This lot is exempt from Sales Tax. Seller explicitly reserves all trademark and trade name rights and rights of privacy and publicity in the name and image of Doris Duke. No buyer of any property in this sale will acquire any right to use the Doris Duke name or image. Seller further explicitly reserves all copyright rights in designs or other copyrightable works included in the property offered for sale. No buyer of any property in the sale will acquire the rights to reproduce, distribute copies of, or prepare derivative works of such designs or copyrightable works.

Further details

Please see important notice on page ( ) concerning items from the Duke Collection.

Lot Essay

The characters neifu denote imperial use. They can be seen on stoneware vessels, notably wine jars of Cizhou type beginning in the Yuan dynasty. A similar, but smaller, jar (37.5 cm. high), with a raised neifu mark in the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, dated to the early 15th century, was included in the exhibition, In Pursuit of the Dragon, Seattle Art Museum, 1988, pp. 86-7, no. 26, where it is noted that large numbers of wine jars were ordered from the Cizhou and Junzhou kilns for the court during the Xuande period. A much smaller (17.5 cm.) black jar of this type and another turquoise-glazed jar with the characters neifu gongyong on the shoulder in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art are illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol. 6, Tokyo, 1982, pl. 115 and col. pl. 75 respectively, where they are attributed to the late 15th century.
See, also, the similar large jar from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections sold in these rooms, 1 December 1994, lot 157.

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