A fine and rare blue and white ‘fruit’ bowl, Mark and period of Xuande | 明宣德 青花折枝瑞果紋盌 《大明宣德年製》款

Acquired by Richard Marchant in England in the 1960s.

理查德．馬錢特在1960年代購於英國

Painted in vibrant tones of cobalt, the fruit motif on this bowl can be considered one of the most successful patterns of the early Ming dynasty and belongs to the central repertoire of the Xuande Imperial kilns. The present example is particularly remarkable for the delicate rendering of fruits with broad washes of cobalt and fine brushstrokes. Bowls with such elegant motifs display the newly awakened interest in fine blue and white porcelain at the Xuande court. It is in this period, that porcelain catered mostly for the imperial family, hence vessels reflect in both size and taste the aesthetic ideals of the period.

Such high quality porcelain, inscribed with the Xuande reign mark, was made exclusively at the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen, which were under the strict supervision of palace eunuchs and local officials. The Imperial Porcelain Bureau was established in Jingdezhen in the second year of Hongwu (1369), although officials and eunuchs were not sent there to supervise production until the Xuande reign. The court would commission wares with decorations based on guanyang (official designs) or huaben (model drawings). Official records of porcelain production are limited and do not mention this particular mixed fruit design. Only three orders for porcelain are recorded: one in the first year of Hongxi, corresponding to 1424, and the second and third in the fifth and eighth year of Xuande, corresponding to 1430 and 1433 respectively. The large quantity of extant porcelains with Xuande marks and of the period, as well as the impressive number of shards recovered at the imperial kiln site at Zhushan, Jingdezhen, clearly show that a large quantity of wares made in the period did not enter into the official records. A fragmentary bowl of this pattern excavated from the waste heaps of the Ming imperial kilns in Jingdezhen is illustrated in Lu Minghua, Mingdai guanyao ciqi [Ming imperial porcelain], Shanghai, 2007, pl. 3-121.

A bowl of this type painted with fruit, in the Palace Museum, Taipei, was included in the Museum’s Special Exhibition of Selected Hsüan-te Imperial Porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, Taipei, 1998, cat. no. 47; one from the collection of Sir Percival David, now in the British Museum, London, is illustrated in Oriental Ceramics. The World’s Great Collections, vol. 6, Tokyo, 1980, pl. 98; and another in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., was included in the exhibition Ming Porcelains in the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1953, pl. 10. 

A further bowl of this design from numerous notable private collections including the Meiyintang Collection, and illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 4, London, 2010, pl. 1655, was sold three times in our London rooms, and most recently in these rooms, 5th October 2011, lot 13; another from the collection of Stephen Junkunc III, was sold in our New York rooms, 22nd March 1995, lot 234; and a third from the Toguri collection, illustrated in Min Shin no bijutsu [The Art of Ming and Qing], Tokyo, 1982, pl. 6, was sold in our London rooms, 9th June 2004, lot 16; and a further example in the Tianminlou Collection, sold in these rooms, 3rd April 2019, lot 5.

此盌鈷藍明艷煥麗，瑞果紋飾堪稱明初青花之佼佼，屬宣德御窰大宗。折枝瑞果精描細繪，鈷料筆觸張弛有致，尤令此盌拔乎其萃。器呈圓型，遂以瑞果為飾，枝葉靈動，更添栩栩生姿。此類宣德盌主貢皇室，是故成器，無論尺寸、意趣，皆求至善至美，以迎宮廷之好。

精工如斯之瓷，又帶宣德年款，惟由景德鎮御窰燒製，且賴宮中宦人及地方官吏嚴慎督造。洪武二年（1369年），景德鎮設立御器廠，及至宣德，乃有宦人、官吏駐派於此，以監窰務。奉詔造瓷，紋飾須依官樣或畫本而作。官家產瓷記錄有限，未曾提及此般瑞果組合。有載之例僅見三批，其一，洪熙元年（在位僅十月），其二，宣德五年，其三，宣德八年。宣德年款存世瓷器數量繁多，景德鎮珠山御窰址所出瓷片亦不勝枚舉，由此推知，宣德產瓷林林總總，未盡述於官家記錄。比較一景德鎮明代御窰堆積出土殘器，紋飾同此，刊於陸明華，《明代官窰瓷器》，上海，2007年，圖版3-121。

台北故宮博物院藏瑞果紋盌，屬此類，錄於《明代宣德官窰菁華特展》，台北，1998年，編號47。另一例，原大維德爵士藏，現為倫敦大英博物館所蓄，載於《東洋陶磁大觀》，卷6，東京，1980年，圖版98。再見一例，貯華盛頓弗利爾美術館，曾展於《Ming Porcelains in the Freer Gallery of Art》，史密森尼學會，華盛頓，1953年，圖版10。

仍有一盌相類，經玫茵堂等名家遞藏，錄於康蕊君，《玫茵堂中國陶瓷》，卷4，倫敦，2010年，圖版1655，曾三度售於倫敦蘇富比，後又售於香港蘇富比2011年10月5日，編號13。史蒂芬．瓊肯三世舊藏一例，售於紐約蘇富比1995年3月22日，編號234。戸栗舊藏亦見一盌，刊於《明清の美術》，東京，1982年，圖版6，售於倫敦蘇富比2004年6月9日，編號16。另可參考天民樓舊藏類例，售於香港蘇富比2019年4月3日，編號5。