An extremely rare early Ming cloisonn?and gilt bronze ritual water vessel China, Ming Dynasty, Yongle / Xuande period

Estimate

130,000 - 150,000 USD

bidding is closed

Description

the compressed globular body finely enameled in cloisonn?/EM> technique with eight large scrolling lotus each with different combinations of petals and enamel colors in their hearts, with deep blue, red, green, white and yellow tones to the blossoms and leaves, supporting the Eight Buddhist Emblems (ba jixiang) cast in gilt bronze with incised details and applied above each blossom, all on a bright turquoise ground between a collar and skirt of gilt bronze lotus lappets, below the elegantly waisted neck ringed with a grooved flange between lappet bands before the wide galleried mouthrim, set with an elegantly tapering S-shaped spout rising from the side with Buddhist triple-jewel or triratna in gilt bronze against red scrolls, all supported on a short stem with similar grooved flange and a widely splayed domed foot below further enameled and gilt bronze lappet bands and inlaid cloisons of classic scroll on a blue ground, leaving the base incised with a double vajra

Catalogue Note

The present vessel is extremely rare and only one other example appears to have been published, with a cover but with the ba jixiang enameled rather than in gilt bronze, exhibited by A & J Speelman, 'Buddhist Works of Art', London 1998, cat.no.17. The form is known in Tibet as chilug, and is used to bear water in the ritual of mouth-cleansing prior to the recitation of sacred Buddhist texts. Compare also a Qianlong mark and period example with decoration derived from fifteenth century examples, in the Uldry Collection, illustrated Chinese Cloisonn?/EM>. The Uldry Collection, Asia Society Galleries, New York, 1989, fig.253.

The Eight Buddhist Emblems were iconographically determined at a very early date, although Sir Harry Garner notes, Chinese and Japanese Cloisonn?Enamels, London, 1970, p.57, while lotus was extremely prevalent in the decoration of Buddhist ritual objects in the fifteenth century, more specifically Buddhist representations, such as the eight precious emblems or vajra, are rare as decorations in cloisonn? porcelain and lacquer of the period. In the present example, it appears that the gilt bronze emblems themselves were cast separately and then applied onto the body of the vessel, probably at the same time as the wire cloisons; a technique apparently unique on this vessel among cloisonn?from the early fifteenth century.