Important Chinese Art

Important Chinese Art

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 3625. An extremely rare inscribed white-glazed 'monk's cap ewer', Ming dynasty, Yongle period | 明永樂 甜白釉暗刻永平安頌銘如意紋僧帽壺.

Property from an Important Collection | 顯赫收藏

An extremely rare inscribed white-glazed 'monk's cap ewer', Ming dynasty, Yongle period | 明永樂 甜白釉暗刻永平安頌銘如意紋僧帽壺

Auction Closed

October 9, 10:57 AM GMT

Estimate

500,000 - 700,000 HKD

Lot Details

Description

Property from an Important Collection

An extremely rare inscribed white-glazed 'monk's cap ewer',

Ming dynasty, Yongle period

顯赫收藏

明永樂 甜白釉暗刻永平安頌銘如意紋僧帽壺


h. 20.3 cm

Sotheby's New York, 17th March 2015, lot 119.

An important European collection.


紐約蘇富比2015年3月17日,編號119

重要歐洲收藏

Porcelain ewers of this form appear to have been produced since the Yuan dynasty and became a standard vessel shape of the imperial kilns in the Yongle reign. This type of white-glazed ewers was made for Tibetan Buddhist rituals performed either at court in the then capital, Nanjing, or in Tibet proper. The Emperor actively supported Tibetan Buddhism, and in 1407 he invited the most influential lama Halima (1384-1415) to the capital Nanjing to perform religious services for his deceased parents. Halima, bestowed with the title Dabao Fawang (Great Precious Religious Ruler) by the Emperor, was the Tibetan religious leader of the Karma-pa sect. The Emperor commissioned lavish gifts from the imperial workshops for this occasion.


More than fifty porcelain ewers of this form, either incised or undecorated, were recovered from stratum five of the Yongle waste heaps of the Ming imperial kilns site, believed to date from around 1407. See a fragmentary monk's cap ewer incised with lingzhi and floral scrolls published in Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1996, cat. no. 99.


Monk's cap ewers with Tibetan inscription is the rarest version of this vessel type, more common being undecorated pieces or ones with lotus scroll and bajixiang, possibly due to the difficulty of finding porcelain decorators able to render the Tibetan writing in Jingdezhen. The inscription can be translated as:


         Peace and tranquillity by day.

         Peace and tranquillity by night.

         Peace and tranquillity at midday.

         Peace and tranquillity unceasing, by day and by night.

         May the three treasures ensure peace and tranquillity.


A similar Yongle monk's cap ewer from the collection of Stanley and Adele Herzman was included in Defining Yongle. Imperial Art in Early Fifteenth-Century China, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2005, pl. 5; one sold at Christie’s London, 12th June 1989, lot 170, is in the Meiyintang collection and published in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 2, no. 650; one from the Eumorfopoulos collection was sold in our London rooms, 30th May 1940, lot 314; another was sold in our New York rooms, 19th November 1982, lot 252; and one at Christie’s Hong Kong, 19th March 1991, lot 532.


'Monk’s cap' ewers derive their shape from Tibetan ewers made of metal or wood, which were probably placed in front of altars filled with provisions or with water for use in ablutions, as is suggested in a somewhat later Tibetan painted textile depicting Avalokiteshvara and other deities behind an altar set with bowls of fruit, a flower vase, pear-shaped bottles and a monk’s cap ewer, illustrated in Defining Yongle. Imperial Art in Early Fifteenth-Century China, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2005, cat. no. 36.


For a white Yuan prototype of this form but of different proportions, excavated from a tomb in Haidian district, Beijing, and now in the Capital Museum, Beijing, see Zhongguo taoci quanji [Complete series on Chinese ceramics], Shanghai, 1999-2000, vol. 11, pl. 62.