A RARE UNDERGLAZE COPPER-RED DECORATED EWER MING DYNASTY, HONGWU PERIOD

the finely potted pear-shaped body rising from a short spreading foot to a tall flaring neck with everted rim, painted around the exterior in copper-red with four large peony heads borne on an undulating leafy scroll, divided to one side with a large strap handle decorated with a floral scroll and to the other with  a long curved spout joined to the body with a strut and similarly decorated with a lotus scroll, all between a lotus lappet band at the foot and peony, key-fret and stiff leaf bands at the neck

Hongwu underglaze-red pieces are extremely rare and only a small number of ewers of this form are recorded. For a detailed discussion of pear-shaped ewers and closely-related yuhuchun ping,  such as the present piece, see Sir John Addis, 'A Group of Underglaze Red', Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, 1957-59, vol. 31, pp. 19-23, where the author notes that the design suited well the sturdy form of the vessel.

See a Hongwu ewer of this form and decoration, from the Qing Court collection and now in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed red (I), Shanghai, 2000, pl. 201; further two ewers, one painted with lotus scroll around the main body, in the collection of the Percival David Foundation, London, and the other decorated with a landscape design with banana trees, bamboo and rockwork in the Matsuoka Art Museum, both included in Sekai toji zenshu, vol. 14, Tokyo, 1976, figs. 13 and 12; and a fourth example similarly painted with banana trees, formerly in the Palmer collection and sold in these rooms, 27th November 1962, published in Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1987, col. pl. 150, together with a blue and white ewer of this type, col. pl. 151. 

A related Hongwu ewer painted in copper-red with flower-filled barbed panels, from the collections of Dr. J. Heller and the British Rail Pension Fund, was sold at Christie's London, 3rd December 1973, lot 46, and in these rooms, 30th March 1978, lot 174, and again, in our Hong Kong rooms, 16th May 1989, lot 9.