A blue and white box and cover, Ming dynasty, Wanli mark and of the period (1572-1620).

The domed cover is painted in brilliant shades of cobalt blue with a dignitary seated before a screen in a walled garden in discussion with two scholars and flanked by attendants, all within a raised medallion. The rounded sides are decorated with four shaped panels containing fruiting and flowering sprigs, birds and butterflies, beneath a triple-lozenge border on top and a key-fret border around the foot. The lower section of the box decorated with striding dragons in pursuit of 'flaming pearls', the rims encircled by the babao alternating with stylised lingzhi sprays, skirted around the foot with a band of foliate scrolls, the base with a six-character reign mark within a double circle. Diameter 22.7 cm.

Cover and stand originally not belonging together but of the same period. Chips to interior of rim.

Provenance

From the collection of Rolf Schmitz (1927-2018). Purchased in London in the late 1970s, thence by descent.

Exhibitions

Compare a box of this type and decoration (lower) at Sothebys Hong Kong, Important Chinese Art, lot 3675, 5 April 2017.

Compare a box at Boston Museum of Fine art, Credit Line
John Gardner Coolidge Collection, Accession Number, 46.489a-b.

Literature

For comparable pieces in litterature, see a box from the Qing court collection and still in Beijing, is illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Blue and White Porcelain with Underglaze Red (II), Shanghai, 2000, pl. 181;

Another box from the collection of the Zwinger in Dresden, is published in Porzellansammlung im Zwinger, Staaliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, 1982, p. 12; another in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, is illustrated in Daisy Lion-Goldschmidt, Ming Porcelain, London, 1978, pl. 212;

Another box, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is published in Oriental Ceramics. The World's Great Collections, Tokyo, 1982, vol. 2, pl. 93; and a further example, in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, was included in the Museum's exhibition Ming Blue-and-White. An Exhibition of Blue-Decorated Porcelain of the Ming Dynasty, Philadelphia, 1949, and is illustrated in Philadelphia Museum Bulletin, vol. XLIV, no. 223, Autumn 1949, pl. 141.

For condition report contact specialist