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1076112

A Wucai Transitional jar with cover, 17th Century.

Estimate
35 000 - 45 000 SEK
3 110 - 3 990 EUR
3 270 - 4 210 USD
Hammer price
30 000 SEK
Purchasing info
For condition report contact specialist
Cecilia Nordström
Stockholm
Cecilia Nordström
Head Specialist Asian Ceramics and Works of Art, European Ceramics and Glass
+46 (0)739 40 08 02
A Wucai Transitional jar with cover, 17th Century.

This baluster shape, heavily decorated, in a combination of vivid under glaze cobalt blue and over glaze enamels of green, iron-red, yellow and aubergine - with a design that covers the whole of the globular body. The short straight neck – with a rounded lip – is painted in a frieze of alternating plantain leaves in enamels of blue, red and green. The jar has a flat unglazed base. The shoulder has a “cracked-ice” border. The design to the body is of four highly stylised blue peaks emerging from a sea of green-crested waves and red foam, amongst which are four galloping horses - two in yellow and two in aubergine. Under each horse there are examples of the “Eight Buddhist Emblems”, whilst the shoulder offers examples of the “Eight Precious Objects”. The domed flared cover is again decorated in a repetition of the body – with auspicious symbols with an onion-shaped knob. Height with cover 40 cm.

Wear, fritting/chip to the rim. Cracks.

Provenance

Purchased from Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers, England, April 2009, Lot 130.

The Avalon Collection.

This collection, which in the main focuses on the Interregnum and Kangxi periods has been both carefully and sensitively formed over the last twenty-five years. The collector, a member of the English Oriental Ceramic Society, has assembled the collection with an eye for provenance whilst purchasing from old European collections, well-established antique dealers and at auction.

Academically, the pieces have been well researched both in terms of their symbolism and narrative themes. In many instances the imagery on the pieces has been referenced to episodes in the romantic and historic novels of Chinese mythology, which were used extensively in the decoration of seventeenth century Chinese porcelain.

Literature

A near identical example is illustrated in “Chinese Export Porcelain: From the Museum of Anastacio Gonclaves Lisbon”, by Maria Antonio Pinto de Matos, Page 158, Item 79 and “Later Chinese Porcelain” by R. Soame Jenyns, Plate II (1).

A similar example is illustrated in “ Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection: Volume II”, by Regina Krahl, Page 147, Item 781.