A FINE AND VERY RARE EARLY MING BLUE AND WHITE ROSEWATER SPRINKLER

Details

A FINE AND VERY RARE EARLY MING BLUE AND WHITE ROSEWATER SPRINKLER
YONGLE

Finely painted around the elegant pear-shaped body with scrolling peony between narrow bands of circles, raised on the waisted stem with a broad knop and decorated with pendent lappets and ruyi-head terminals, supported on a hollow base with bands of demi-florettes and further circles, the long spout painted with a foliate scroll with ruyi-shaped petals, the interior of the flaring mouth with finely pencilled scrolling chrysanthemums, the underglaze blue of rich purplish colour and the bubble-suffused glaze pooling to a greenish tint on the shallow footrim
8 1/8in. (20.6cm.) high

Provenance

The F. C. Palmer Collection, sold in our London Rooms, 7 October 1968, lot 99
The Frederick Knight Collection, sold in Hong Kong, 18 May 1982, lot 24 The T. Y. Chao Family Collection, sold in Hong Kong, 19 May 1987, lot 234

Literature

Anthony du Boulay, Christie's Pictorial History of Chinese Ceramics, p. 116, fig. 3

Lot Essay

The condition and quality of this piece is exceptional.

Early Ming wares of this shape are extremely rare. Two other Yongle rosewater sprinklers of this pattern are recorded. An example from the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated by Mayuyama, Chugoku Bunbutsu Kenbun, pl. 23 and again in Zhongguo Wenwu Jinghua Daquan, Ceramics section, p. 370, no. 679; another from the Norton Collection was sold in London, 26 March 1963, lot 47.

Also see Ming Qing Ciqi Jianding, Mingdai Bufen, p. 24, fig. 36 (1) where Geng Baochang records this very rare shape.

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