A fine Imperial blue and white porcelain zhadou, China, Zhengde four-character mark and period. Estimate 80 000 €. Photo Nagel
The compressed globular body standing on a splayed foot with rounded edge, vigorously painted in soft underglaze-blue with a pair of sinuous scaly dragons striding through scrolling lotus, repeated on the exterior and interior of the widely flared trumpet neck, the foot encircled by a border of upright ruyi heads enclosing trefoils, the footrim left unglazed and burnt to a rich orange tone in the firing. H. 12,8 cm. Few small frits or glaze chips to mouth rim, very short firing crack to mouth rim, very minor wear
Property from an important European private collection, according to the present owner bought 1970 from the dealer Dr. Franzero, London
A vase of this pattern is included in the Illustrated Catalogue of Ming Dynasty Porcelain in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, pl. 92; one in the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, is illustrated by Wirgin, Chinese Ceramics from the Axel and Nora Lundgren Bequest, pl. 32, no. 33; another from the Lauritzen Collection, now in the same Museum, in Oriental Ceramics, The World’s Great Collections, vol. 8, 1982, no. 238; and one from the Palmer Collection by Garner, Oriental Blue an White, pl. 46B. Others have been included in the ‘Exhibition of Ming Porcelains in the Freer Gallery of Art’, 1953, Catalogue, no. 29; in the O.C.S. ‘Exhibition of Chinese Blue and White Porcelain’, London, 1954, Catalogue, no. 131, from the Clark Collection; in the China Institute in America ‘ Exhibition of Ming Porcelains’, 1970, Catalogue, no. 33, from the Spheeris Collection; in the ‘Exhibition of One Hundred Masterpieces of Chinese Ceramics from the Percival David Foundation’, Japan, 1980, Catalogue, no. 75; in the ‘Exhibition of an Anthology of Chinese Ceramics’, Hong Kong, 1980, Catalogue, no. 83; and in the ‘Oosterse Schatten Exhibition’, Amsterdam, 1954, Catalogue, no. 247, from the Hay and Knight Collections.
A similar blue and white zhadou bearing a four-character Zhengde mark is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, and illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum – 35 – Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed red (II), Hong Kong, 2000, p. 62, no. 57
Nagel. « Asian Art ». 2014/12/08
Alain.R.Truong 