WANLI SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE WITHIN A DOUBLE RECTANGLE AND OF THE PERIOD (1573-1619)

A very similar example from the Jingguantang Collection, was included in the exhibition Joined Colours. Decoration and Meaning in Chinese Porcelain, and later sold at Sotheby’s London, 12 July 2006, lot 68; another closely related example with the pair of phoenix on the upper bulb facing the opposite directions from the Mr. and Mrs. Otto Doering Collection, was sold at Christie’s New York, 9 November 1978, lot 130, and illustrated by Anthony du Boulay, Christie’s Pictorial History of Chinese Ceramics, Oxford, 1984, p. 171, no. 3; and a third also with the rightward facing phoenix but with the mark in blue and white, was sold at Nagel, 7 December 2015, lot 456.

Another closely related group of wall vases painted with cockerels on the lower bulb is known, examples include one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Porcelains in Polychrome and Contrasting Colours Tianjin City Art Museum; a second is illustrated in Porcelains from the Tianjin Municipal Museum, Hong Kong, 1993, pl. 120; a third in the Baur Collection, published by John Ayers, The Baur Collection, vol. 2, Geneva, 1969, pl. A 201; a further example in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, published in E. Zimmerman, Chinesisches Porzellan, Leipzig, 1923, pl. 66; and a fifth sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 5 October 2011, lot 1901.