A FINELY PAINTED AND RARE BLUE AND WHITE VASE (MEIPING) MING DYNASTY, LATE 15TH CENTURY

finely-potted with high swelling shoulders rising to a narrow neck and everted rim, superbly painted around the sides in 'windswept' style with two scholars conversing in a clearing as a third scholar approaches carrying a wrapped qin under his arm, a pavilion nearby with elaborate trelliswork set amidst billowing clouds, between ruyi-form lappets enclosing stylized lotus scroll around the shoulders and a row of high petal lappets around the foot, all within double and triple-line borders, the base unglazed with a low rounded foot rim

Collection of Charles E. Russell (1866-1960), London.
Sotheby's London, 6th June 1935, lot 79. 
Bluett & Sons, London, 15th June 1935.
Collection of Alfred (1873-1950) and Ivy Clark (c. 1890-1976), London.
Spink & Son, London, 1974.
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon Breitbart, New York and Arizona, and thence by descent.

Ming Blue-and-White Porcelain, Oriental Ceramic Society, London, 1946, cat. no. 51.
Blue and White Porcelain from the Collection of Mrs. Alfred Clark, Spink & Son, Ltd. London, 1974, cat. no. 30.
Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, on loan (1997-2009).

In good overall condition. The mouth rim with an impact bruise (1.7 cm wide) with an associated loss and T-shaped star crack. The rim with two polished glaze flakes, the larger measuring 1.1 cm across, A hairline encircling approximately half of the base of the neck with associated glaze gaps. The faint potting lines to the lower body, beneath the glaze. The base adhered with number old labels, the foot with a 1.5 cm loss at the foot, presumably caused by a firing imperfection. Other scattered minor firing imperfections and light surface wear throughout.
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This striking vase belongs to a special group of porcelains decorated with figural scenes that was produced between the late 15th and early 16th century. They stem from a style developed in the interregnum period, when political unrest and economic deprivation had allowed commercial kilns to flourish and freed craftsmen from the tight restriction of work executed to palace orders. This led to a revival of the free and naturalistic style popular in porcelain wares painted with figures during the Yuan dynasty. A porcelain shard painted with a scholar wearing long billowing robes, was recovered from the interregnum stratum at Zhushan, and included in the exhibition Ceramic Finds from Jingdezhen Kilns, The Fung Ping Shan Museum, Hong Kong, 1992, cat. no. 230.

A comparable meiping, also similarly painted on the shoulder with lotus scrolls enclosed in ruyi-heads, in the Grandidier collection, in the Musée Guimet, Paris, is illustrated in Oriental Ceramics. The World’s Great Collections, Tokyo, 1981, vol. 7, pl. 56; one in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, was included in the exhibition Chinese Porcelain of the Ming and Ch’ing Dynasties, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1977, cat. no. 16; another was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 15th November 1988, lot 125; and a fourth was sold at Christie’s London, 16th June 1986, lot 145. See also a slightly larger meiping, with its matching cover, sold in our London rooms, 13th December 1988, lot 152; and two slightly smaller examples, the first, sold in our London rooms, 19th June 1984, lot 267, and the second, sold at Christie’s New York, 1st June 1990, lot 195. Another slightly smaller meiping of this type, excavated at Jingdezhen, was included in Splendour of Porcelain. Exhibition of Blue and White Porcelains in Jingdezhen of Jiangxi Province, Hubei Provincial Museum, Wuhan, 2013, p. 140.

Meiping of this type, painted with scholars in landscape, are also known decorated on the shoulder and foot with a variety of motifs; see for example one painted with crashing waves, in the Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, included in the exhibition Yuan and Ming Blue and White Ware from Jiangxi, Jiangxi Provincial Museum, Nanchang, 2002, cat. no. 42; another, the neck with sea horses among waves, from the collection of Harry Oppenheim, now in the British Museum, London, illustrated in Jessica Harrison-Hall, op. cit., pl. 5.5; and a third painted with lobed cartouches on the neck, sold three times in our London rooms, in 1961, 1967, and again, 14th December 1976, lot 116.

This vase comes from the famous collection of Charles Ernest Russell (1866-1960), one of the most far-sighted collectors of his time, one-time owner of one of the ‘David Vases’ and one of the first to appreciate Yuan dynasty blue and white, as well as Qing dynasty imperial porcelain. His collection, which ranged from the Song to the Qing dynasty, was partly published by R.L. Hobson in 1931. Several pieces ended up in the collection of Sir Percival David, now in the British Museum, London, while others were sold at Sotheby’s London between 1935 and 1960. Ten days after this vase was sold at Sotheby’s London in 1935, and purchased by the London antique dealer Bluett & Sons Ltd., it entered the collection of Mr and Mrs Alfred Clark, who formed another fabled collection of Chinese porcelain. From Fulmer in Berkshire, Mr Alfred Clark was an active supporter of the Oriental Ceramic Society and was directly involved in the preparation of the 1935/6 exhibition in London to which he lent five dozen pieces. Asked whose collection Sir Percival David considered most highly, Lady David in an interview in 1992 replied: ‘I think the Clarks'… collection, I would say, was one of the finest’ (Anthony Lin Hua-Tien, ‘An Interview with Lady David’, Orientations, April 1992, pp 56-63).