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Lot Essay
Only one other wucai cylindrical box of this impressive size appears to be recorded. This is the famous box in the Umezawa Kinenkan Museum, Tokyo, which has been officially designated an Important Art Object by the Japanese authorities. The Umezawa box, which has the same decorative theme of dragon and phoenix chasing a flaming pearl among floral scrolls, was one of the most prestigious pieces exhibited in 1995 in Imperial Overglaze-Enamelled Wares in the Late Ming Dynasty, at the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, exhibit number 32. Like the current box, the Umezawa example has a glazed panel recessed into its unglazed base in which the six-character mark appears in underglaze-blue within a double rectangle bordered by eight ruyi heads. Such large cylindrical porcelain boxes are rare in any decorative scheme, and one of the very few with blue and white decoration is also in the Umezawa Kinenkan Museum. This blue and white box, which is illustrated in Mayuyama, Seventy Years, Volume One, Mayuyama, Tokyo, 1976, p. 322, no. 961, is decorated with five-clawed dragons chasing flaming pearls amongst vegetal scrolls.
The present box, decorated in the wucai, five-colour, technique was an imperial commission of the Wanli reign (AD 1573-1619). It is decorated with the imperial symbols of a five-clawed dragon, symbol of the emperor, and a flying phoenix, symbol of the empress, circling a flaming pearl among floral scrolls. This extremely rare box is especially finely painted and is of unusually large size. The sheer weight of the porcelain would have made it extremely difficult to fire the box successfully. The decorator has made full use of the palette both in his depiction of the imperial dragon with blue body and red mane and dorsal spine, and in the multicoloured wings and fluttering tail feathers of the phoenix.
The name wucai, or five-colour, ware for the decorative technique employing discrete areas of underglaze cobalt blue with areas of overglaze enamel colours has symbolic significance. The number five is important in several areas of Chinese culture, where there are taken to be: Five Elements, Five Directions, Five Buddha families and Five Wisdoms. In Tantric Buddhism each of the Five Transcendent Buddhas is represented in a different colour - red, green, white, blue and yellow. In Daoism the representation of five is taken still further with the concept of divine correspondence. The Five Elements relate to the Five Directions, while there is recognition of the Five Sacred Peaks and the Five Planets, and five-coloured concentric bands of light are depicted over the peak known as Heaven's Column at Wudang Shan.
The colours of the wucai palette take the white of the porcelain as their base and have the addition of an almost black enamel to provide outlines and texture strokes to certain areas of the design. While the overall effect is of dramatic colour, closer inspection reveals the softer appearance of the underglaze cobalt blue providing a pleasing contrast with the brilliant, clear tones of the overglaze enamels. This palette was particularly admired by the Jiajing (AD 1522-66), Longqing (AD 1567-72) and Wanli emperors, who commissioned a variety of porcelain items decorated in the technique.
The theme of the imperial dragon and phoenix with flaming pearl can be seen on several wucai porcelains commissioned by the Wanli court. A rectangular wucai writing box in the collection of the Shanghai Museum, illustrated in Zhongguo Taoci Quanji, vol. 21, Jingdezhen caihui ciqi, Bi-no-bi, Shanghai/Tokyo, 1981, no. 38, combines the depiction of the imperial creatures on the exterior with multicoloured clouds on the interior. A pair of hexagonal zun-shaped wucai vases preserved in the Hon-nou-ji Temple in Kyoto combine representations of the dragon and phoenix in the central section with flowers in vases on the neck and foot facets. These vases, illustrated in Imperial Overglaze-Enamelled Wares in the Late Ming Dynasty, no. 26, also bear Wanli reign marks and have the same colour-scheme for the five-clawed dragons - blue body and red mane and dorsal spine - as on the current box. The vases also share with the box similarities in the depiction of the red peonies and the yellow chrysanthemums.
The present box, decorated in the wucai, five-colour, technique was an imperial commission of the Wanli reign (AD 1573-1619). It is decorated with the imperial symbols of a five-clawed dragon, symbol of the emperor, and a flying phoenix, symbol of the empress, circling a flaming pearl among floral scrolls. This extremely rare box is especially finely painted and is of unusually large size. The sheer weight of the porcelain would have made it extremely difficult to fire the box successfully. The decorator has made full use of the palette both in his depiction of the imperial dragon with blue body and red mane and dorsal spine, and in the multicoloured wings and fluttering tail feathers of the phoenix.
The name wucai, or five-colour, ware for the decorative technique employing discrete areas of underglaze cobalt blue with areas of overglaze enamel colours has symbolic significance. The number five is important in several areas of Chinese culture, where there are taken to be: Five Elements, Five Directions, Five Buddha families and Five Wisdoms. In Tantric Buddhism each of the Five Transcendent Buddhas is represented in a different colour - red, green, white, blue and yellow. In Daoism the representation of five is taken still further with the concept of divine correspondence. The Five Elements relate to the Five Directions, while there is recognition of the Five Sacred Peaks and the Five Planets, and five-coloured concentric bands of light are depicted over the peak known as Heaven's Column at Wudang Shan.
The colours of the wucai palette take the white of the porcelain as their base and have the addition of an almost black enamel to provide outlines and texture strokes to certain areas of the design. While the overall effect is of dramatic colour, closer inspection reveals the softer appearance of the underglaze cobalt blue providing a pleasing contrast with the brilliant, clear tones of the overglaze enamels. This palette was particularly admired by the Jiajing (AD 1522-66), Longqing (AD 1567-72) and Wanli emperors, who commissioned a variety of porcelain items decorated in the technique.
The theme of the imperial dragon and phoenix with flaming pearl can be seen on several wucai porcelains commissioned by the Wanli court. A rectangular wucai writing box in the collection of the Shanghai Museum, illustrated in Zhongguo Taoci Quanji, vol. 21, Jingdezhen caihui ciqi, Bi-no-bi, Shanghai/Tokyo, 1981, no. 38, combines the depiction of the imperial creatures on the exterior with multicoloured clouds on the interior. A pair of hexagonal zun-shaped wucai vases preserved in the Hon-nou-ji Temple in Kyoto combine representations of the dragon and phoenix in the central section with flowers in vases on the neck and foot facets. These vases, illustrated in Imperial Overglaze-Enamelled Wares in the Late Ming Dynasty, no. 26, also bear Wanli reign marks and have the same colour-scheme for the five-clawed dragons - blue body and red mane and dorsal spine - as on the current box. The vases also share with the box similarities in the depiction of the red peonies and the yellow chrysanthemums.