Rare Vase en porcelaine à décor rouge de cuivre, yuhuchunping Dynastie Ming, époque Hongwu (1368-1398)

le corps en forme de poire reposant sur un pied légèrement évasé, se rétrécissant en un col à présent sectionné, la panse peinte d'un intense rouge vif de chrysanthèmes, pivoines, fleurs de grenadiers et camélias, au dessus d'une bande de larges pétales de lotus abritant des volutes autour de la base, l'épaulement agrémenté d'une bande de têtes de ruyi, le col rehaussé d'un anneau d'entrelacs sous une frise de grecques, le pied d'une frise de rinceaux

Collection of Prof. Franz Hart  (1910-1996), Munich.
Acquired from the above in the 1960s.

Seladon Swatow Blauweiss. Chinesische Keramik aus der Sammlung Ignazio Vok, Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst der Stadt Koeln, 7. Mai - 28. August 1983, no. 55.
Seladon Swatow Blauweiss. Chinesische Keramik aus der Sammlung Ignazio Vok, Museum Rietberg, Haus am Kiel, Zuerich, 6. Oktober - 8. Januar 1984, no. 55.

H. Seling (ed.), Keyser's Kunst und Antiquitaetenbuch, Muenchen, 1957, Fig. 111.
Ulrich Wiesner, Seladon Swatow Blauweiss. Chinesische Keramik aus der Sammlung Ignazio Vok, Cologne, 1983, cat. no. 55.

There is a hairline visible in the glaze on the body, extending in an erratic line ca. 11cm from the rim down the body. The hairline is visble in the glaze and can be felt but does not extend through the body or the glaze on the inside of the vase. There is another crack to the glaze running diagonally through the glaze and extending from the rim down the inside of the vase but not matching the crack on the exterior (in fact it is ca. 0.5cm removed from the crack on the exterior). There is some minor old fritting to the glaze on the inside and outside of the neck where it has been cut down. There are some minor scattered pin-point imperfections to the glaze and some scattered burst glaze bubbles. There is a ca. 3cm wide flaw in form of a horizontal line underneath the glaze across one of the lotus flowers. And a ca. 1cm wide area where the glaze has been roughened as a result of scattered ashes in the kiln. There is extensive crackling to the glaze particularly to the area above the looting line and below the looting line and the foot. And there is some very light scratching to the glaze around the body and particularly to the widest part of the body. The red is of a very strong and vibrant, even bright red tone.
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The design on the present vase illustrates the more quiet and orderly manner of decorating porcelains introduced at the imperial kilns during the early part of the Ming dynasty. The soft copper-red tones characteristic of Hongwu porcelains was well-suited to this new style. As noted by Liu Xinyuan, significant numbers of copper-red decorated porcelains were produced but only few were successfully fired due to the difficulties in controlling the copper-red pigment, see Liu Xinyuan, 'A Study of Early Ming and Yongle Imperial Porcelains excavated at Zhushan, Jingdezhen', in Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain excavated at Jingdezhen, Taipei, 1996, p. 52.

While the decorative repertoire of early Ming porcelains with painted designs was limited to formal flower motifs and ornamental borders that covered the surface in an orderly pattern, many of the designs retain a quality of independant robustness with a different style unrepeated in later periods. Within the body of underglaze-red painted Hongwu porcelains, the present vase is unsual as the body is boldly painted with the flowers of the four seasons, chrysanthemum, lotus, peony and pomegranate, all issuing from rockwork and enfolded in luscious foliage. While most vases of this type and period are decorated around the body with a continuous design of meandering lotus or peony flowers, few examples are actually painted with floral designs incorporating rockwork or different flowers. Compare, for example, a vase of the same form decorated with the three friends of winter similarly issuing from rockwork, formerly in the Qing court collection, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red, vol. I, Hong Iong, 2008, pl. 199. The design involving lotus, chrysanthemum and peony issuing from rockwork more commonly appears on large dishes of the period, compare an impressive example also from the Qing court collection, illustrated ibid., pl. 211. For a discussion on this vase type and the different design painted on it, see, John Addis, 'A Group fo Underglazed Red', in Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, vol. 31, 1957-1959, pl. 4c.