AN IMPORTANT BLUE AND WHITE 'DRAGON' BOTTLE VASE YUAN DYNASTY

THIS IS A PREMIUM LOT. CLIENTS WHO WISH TO BID ON PREMIUM LOTS ARE REQUESTED TO COMPLETE THE PREMIUM LOT PRE-REGISTRATION 3 WORKING DAYS PRIOR TO THE SALE. BIDnow ONLINE BIDDING SERVICE IS NOT AVAILABLE.



 



the pear-shaped body rising to a slender neck and a wide flaring rim, counterbalanced by a splayed footring, freely painted in dark cobalt blue with a three-clawed striding dragon, its head with elaborate horns gazing up at a flaming pearl, the sinuous body wrapped around the entire vessel with spikes along the spine and cross-hatched scales, the inner mouthrim painted with a 'classic' scroll border, the base glazed save for the unglazed footring revealing a yellowish-beige body

Collection of Charles E. Russell, London (until 1936, one of two vases) .
Sotheby's London, 12th February 1936, offered for purchase together with its companion, lot 75, while on display at the Royal Academy of Arts.
Collection of Mrs. Alfred Clark (1936 until the 1970s, one of two vases).
Mayuyama & Co, Ltd, Tokyo.
Private Collection, Japan.
J.J. Lally & Co., New York.

International Exhibition of Chinese Art, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1935-6, cat. no. 1434 (illustrated).
Ming Blue-and-White Porcelain, Oriental Ceramic Society, London, 1946, cat. no. 2.
Chinese Blue and White Porcelain: 14th to 19th Centuries, Oriental Ceramic Society at the Arts Council Gallery, London, 1953-4, cat. no. 1 (illustrated).
Mostra d'Arte Cinese/Exhibition of Chinese Art, Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 1954, cat. no. 600 (illustrated).
The British Museum, London, 1955 (according to label; probably on loan).
Tōyō no sometsuke/Far Eastern Blue-and-White Porcelain, Mitsukoshi, Tokyo, 1977, cat. no. 12 (illustrated).
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1980s, on loan).

Jean Gordon Lee, 'Some Pre-Ming "Blue-and-White", Archives of the Chinese Art Society in America, vol. VI, 1952, p. 38, pl. IV, fig. c.
Soame Jenyns, Ming Pottery and Porcelain, London and Boston, 1988 (1953), pl. 12.
Sir Harry Garner, Oriental Blue and White, London, 1973 (1954), pl. 3.
Margaret Medley, Yüan Porcelain and Stoneware, London, 1974, pl. 25.
Sōgyō Shichijūnen Kinen Ryūsen Shūhō/Mayuyama, Seventy Years, Tokyo, 1976, pl. 696.
Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 4, no. 1620.

There is a 2.5 cm hairline crack on the mouth rim and a 2 parallel firing cracks about 2 cm long on the neck. The cracks are exposed on the interior through the glaze and visible beneath the glaze on the exterior. There is some light fritting to the mouthrim. The glaze has a few patches with some kiln grit and pin holes. The glaze is a bit matte. There is an original potting flaw on the foot. The blue is very well controlled.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This vase with its lively, freely painted dragon is an iconic piece of Yuan blue and white, as is testified by its illustrious provenance from the Charles Russell and Alfred Clark collection, the impressive list of exhibitions in which it featured – including the ground-breaking International Exhibition of Chinese Art in London 1935-6 and the seminal Marco Polo Seventh Centenary exhibition in Venice 1954 – and the renowned experts who wrote about it, among them Soame Jenyns, Harry Garner and Margaret Medley.

The vase shared part of its history with a companion piece painted, probably by the same hand, with an almost identical dragon, but with a prunus branch and crescent moon inside the rim. This second vase, later in the Ataka collection and now in the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, (fig. 1) was included together with the present vase in the Oriental Ceramic Society exhibition 1953-4, op.cit., cat. no. 2, and is illustrated, for example, in Ye Peilan, Yuandai ciqi [Porcelain of the Yuan dynasty], Beijing, 1998, pl. 91. Another vase with a similar dragon and also with a classic scroll inside the rim, in the National Museum of China, Beijing, is published in Peng Qingyun, ed., Zhongguo wenwu jinghua daquan: Taoci juan [Complete masterpieces of Chinese cultural relics: Ceramics volume], Taipei, 1993, p. 328, no. 535; and a fragmentary vase with plain rim, excavated near Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, is published in the exhibition catalogue Empires Beyond the Great Wall. The Heritage of Genghis Khan, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, 1994, p. 141, fig. 91. Fragments of similar vases, probably discovered at Jingdezhen, are also illustrated and their production methods discussed in Huang Yunpeng, ed., Yuan qinghua yanjiu [Research on Yuan blue and white], Shanghai, 2006, p. 10, fig. 4, and p. 256, col. pl. 3.

Fig. 1
Blue-and-white vase with dragon
Yuan dynasty
Formerly collections of Charles E. Russell, Mrs. Alfred Clark and Ataka Eiichi, now Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka