A rare cloisonné enamel 'floral' gu-form vase, Ming dynasty, 15th / 16th century | 明十五 / 十六世紀 掐絲琺瑯花卉紋花觚

Die Ware aus dem Teufelsland, Chinesische und japanische Cloisonné – und Champlevé-Arbeiten von 1400 bis 1900, Museum für Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt am Main, 1981, cat. no. 7.

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《Die Ware aus dem Teufelsland, Chinesische und japanische Cloisonné – und Champlevé-Arbeiten von 1400 bis 1900 》，應用藝術博物館，法蘭克福，1981年，編號7

The present vase derives its shape from bronze beakers produced as ritual wine vessels in the late Shang and Zhou dynasties. While the original purpose and inspiration behind this slender fluting form has been lost to history, first emerging in China’s illiterate prehistory, the gu soon developed a close association with the royalty, power, and the importance of ritual propriety in the Confucian canon. 

By the Ming dynasty, scholar-officials and emperors had returned to these ancient forms as symbols of China’s illustrious past and scholarly refinement. While their initial use as ritual vessels had mostly subsided, these bronze forms took on new purposes as flower vases, censers and decorative objects in their own right. The present form, for example, was given the moniker huagu (flower gu) and redesignated as a desirable form for flower arrangements; a role supported by its lush floral enameling. For another 15th century cloisonné interpretation of a Shang ritual vessel, compare a vessel in the form of a tripod ding redesigned as a censer, included in Recasting the Past: The Art of Chinese Bronzes, 1100-1900, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2025, cat. no. 78; and a later parcel-gilt interpretation of the gu form, produced by the famous workshop of Hu Wenming around 1599, ibid., cat. no. 107.

Cloisonné vases of this ancient form and early dating are exceedingly rare. Compare a closely related gu of this size dated to the Xuande period, preserved in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Metal-Bodied Enamel Ware, Hong Kong, 2002, pl. 24; and another preserved in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, in Masterpieces of Chinese Enamel Ware in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1971, pl. 6. Also compare a cloisonné gu with a closely related design of flowers and dark blue lappets on a light blue ground, sold at Bonhams London, 12th May 2022, lot 99; a sixteenth century example, closer in form to Ming interpretations than to Shang prototypes, sold from the collection of Dr. Kenneth Lawley (1937-2023) in our London rooms, 17th May 2024, lot 276; and another, of Yuan or early Ming dating, preserved in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, illustrated in Cloisonné. Chinese Enamels from the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, Bard Graduate Center, New York, 2011, fig. 5.6.