CIRCA 1640

Details

A FINE PAIR OF LARGE TRANSITIONAL WUCAI BALUSTER JARS AND COVERS
circa 1640
Each boldly painted and enamelled with four ladies and a multitude of small boys in a continuous scene beside rockwork, plantain, and the Three Friends, pine, prunus and bamboo, the ladies in conversation, one holding a boy's hand, another a fan, another a small boy in her arms and the fourth a leafy spray, the boys in animated play, two performing a lion dance, one dressed up in harlequin robes, others playing musical instruments, another baiting a crab, another holding a lotus lantern, all below a band of peony, rockwork and foliage on the tall cylindrical neck, the shallow domed covers similarly decorated, one neck and covers restored
20½in. (52cm.) high (2)

Lot Essay

The scene depicted on these vases is probably 'the lantern festival', which takes place on the fifth day after the Chinese New Year. See B. Gyllensvärd, op.cit., p.61, fig.100 for a similar wucai vase, without cover, also depicting a lion-dance, which is shown in detail in fig.101; and the smaller vase in the Museum of Anastácio Gonçalves, Lisbon, very similarly decorated to the present lot, illustrated by M. A. Pinto de Matos, Chinese Export Porcelain, pp.164 and 165, no.82.

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