WANLI SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE WITHIN A DOUBLE CIRCLE AND OF THE PERIOD (1573-1620)

During the Wanli period, doucai wares from the Chenghua reign were greatly admired and emulated. The present bowl is based on a Chenghua prototype, such as the one illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, A Legacy of Chenghua: Imperial Porcelain of the Chenghua reign excavated from Zhushan, Jingdezhen, Hong Kong, 1993, pp. 334-35, no. C123. Another Chenghua example with the same design as the present bowl, but decorated only in underglaze blue and lacking the polychrome decoration, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is illustrated in Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Ch’eng-hua Porcelain Ware, 1465-1487, Taiwan, 2003, p. 145, no. 131. (Fig. 1) Both Chenghua and Wanli examples of this doucai pattern are extremely rare.

Only three other Wanli doucai bowls of this design appear to be recorded, two of the bowls, including the current bowl, have the marks written within double circles, and the other two have the marks written within double rectangles. A very similar Wanli doucai bowl is in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, and is illustrated in Enamelled Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Book III, Hong Kong, 1966, plates 11a-d. (Fig. 2) The mark on the National Palace Museum bowl is also set within a double circle and written in the same style as that on the present bowl, and quite likely by the same hand. (Fig. 3) Other similarly decorated Wanli doucai bowls, but with the marks within double rectangles, include one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Porcelains in Polychrome and Contrasting Colors, The Complete Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1999, p. 205, no. 187, and one from the Meiyintang Collection, and formerly in the collections of Sir John Braithwaite, The British Rail Pension Fund, and the Tsui Museum of Art, which was sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 4 April 2012, lot 44.