A MING BLUE AND WHITE OVIFORM JAR

THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN

Details

A MING BLUE AND WHITE OVIFORM JAR
JIAJING SIX-CHARACTER MARK AND OF THE PERIOD (1522-1566)

Well painted in rich purplish-blue tones with the 'Three Friends of Winter', pine, prunus and bamboo, growing from rocks and breaking waves, the coiling stems forming stylised auspicious characters Fu Shou Kang Ning, 'prosperity, longevity, health and peace', the trees divided by lingzhi stems and below a floral meander at the shoulder and upright stiff leaves around the cylindrical neck
8 1/2 in. (21.5 cm.) high

Provenance

Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Clark, no. 244

Literature

Chinese Pottery and Porcelain in the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Clark, p. 31, fig. XXXIIIa

Exhibited

Oriental Ceramic Society, Ming Blue and White, 1946, Catalogue, no. 71

Lot Essay

Previously sold one of a pair in our London Rooms, 7 June 1993, lot 49.

Two similarly decorated baluster vases formerly in the C. T. Loo collection, Paris, are illustrated by. M. and C. Beurdeley, Chinese Ceramics, pls. 58 and 60.

Jars from the Jiajing period with this distinctive Daoist-inspired decoration are relatively rare. However, other pieces which incorporate stylised auspicious characters with the 'Three Friends of Winter' were popular during the Jiajing period. See, for example, a small box and cover in the Bloxham Collection, illustrated by R. L. Hobson, B. Rackham and W. King, Chinese Ceramics in Private Collections, p. 114, fig. 205; and a bowl illustrated by J. Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, Washington, 1956, pl. 80.

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