17TH CENTURY

The teapot belongs to a group of wares specifically ordered by Japanese connoisseurs from the Jingdezhen kilns in China, from the Chongzhen period (1628-1644) and throughout the 17th century. A wucai teapot and cover dating to c.1700, with very similar decoration and shape, in the British Museum, gifted by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks (1826-1897), is illustrated by S. J. Vainker in Chinese Pottery and Porcelain. From Prehistory to the Present, London, 1995, p. 149.
A similarly-decorated large Chinese ewer with overhead handle dated from the Chongzhen (1628-1644) to Shunzhi period (1644-1661) is illustrated in the Idemitsu Museum of Art exhibition catalogue Kakiemon to Nabeshima [Kakiemon and Nabeshima], Tokyo, 2008, p, 128, no. 92.