A 'LONGQUAN' CELADON VASE MING DYNASTY

robustly potted with a bulbous body rising to a waisted neck flaring to a wide everted rim, the body moulded and carved with chrysanthemum flowers borne on a continuous leafy scroll, above upright plantain lappets skirting the foot, carved with key fret below the filet collaring the neck and upright plantain leaves above, the everted rim decorated with a band of chevrons and finished with raised bosses along the edge, all beneath a lustrous olive-green glaze pooling in the recesses

Formerly in a Japanese Collection.

Longquan celadon vases of this distinctive form and design are extremely rare.  See one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, similarly decorated with a chrysanthemum scroll, illustrated in Ye Peilan, Yuan dai ciqi, Beijing, 1998, pl.447; another carved with a peony scroll and the only example like the present piece with a keyfret around the neck, offered in our London rooms, 7th June 1994, lot 322; and a third sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 29th May 2007, lot 1472.

See three other examples carved with alternating fruiting and flowering sprigs within rectangular cartouches.  One is illustrated in ibid., pl.446 and also published in Sekai Toji Zhenshu, vol.13,col.pl.150, and again in Toji Taikei, vol.36, pl.88, where this type of celadon is referred to as Tenryuji celadon after the Tenryu-ji Temple in Kyoto; the second is in the National Palace Museum, published in Art of the Great Khan, Pluralism in Chinese Art and Culture Under the Mongols, Taipei, 1991, pl.IV-39; and the third, formerly in the H.M.Knight Collection was sold in our London rooms, 12th May 1970, lot 37.  Also compare a small undecorated vase of similar form, sold in these rooms, 17th November 1975, lot 28.