A BLUE AND WHITE ‘PHEASANT AND PEONY’ OCTAGONAL BOX AND COVER
A BLUE AND WHITE ‘PHEASANT AND PEONY’ OCTAGONAL BOX AND COVER
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A BLUE AND WHITE ‘PHEASANT AND PEONY’ OCTAGONAL BOX AND COVER

JIAJING SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE AND OF THE PERIOD (1522-1566)

Details
A BLUE AND WHITE ‘PHEASANT AND PEONY’ OCTAGONAL BOX AND COVER
JIAJING SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE AND OF THE PERIOD (1522-1566)
The top is painted with a pheasant standing on a rock surrounded by peonies while another stands below, with birds in flight and perched in the tree to the side and lingzhi fungus in the foreground, and vignettes of birds and flowering or fruiting branches on each facet of the domed sides, which are repeated on the sides of the box, with lingzhi sprays around the rims.
11 9/16 in. (29.5 cm.) wide
Provenance
A French private collection since the early 20th century
Sold at Christie’s Paris, 19 December 2012, lot 54

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Priscilla Kong
Priscilla Kong

Lot Essay

The current box is accompanied by a label suggesting that it was previously exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Boxes in octagonal form with the Jiajing mark are quite rare. The ‘pheasant and peony’ design is one of the typical decorative patterns for Jiajing octagonal boxes. There are a few comparable examples, all bearing the Jiajing six-character mark. One is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is published in Suzanne G. Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1989, pl. 167; another, originally in the Eumorfopoulos Collection and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is illustrated in R.L. Hobson, Catalogue of the Chinese, Corean and Persian Pottery and Porcelain: The Ming Dynasty, London, vol. 4, 1927, plate III. D26; also one published in Abu Ridho, Oriental Ceramics: The Worlds Great Collections, vol. 3, Tokyo, 1982, pl. 203 and that illustrated in Sekai Toji Zenshu: Ming, vol. 14, Tokyo, 1976, plates, 70-1, pp. 68-9; a further example is in the Nanjing Museum.

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