A very rare blue and white 'lianzi' bowl, Ming dynasty, Yongle period | 明永樂　青花花卉紋蓮子盌

Christie's Hong Kong, 29th May 2007, lot 1452.

Porcelain from the Yongle reign (1403–24) marks a pinnacle of Ming dynasty artistry, marked by its elegant forms, luminous glaze, and motifs touched by foreign influence. This bowl, made for the imperial court, exemplifies that rarefied world: such fine porcelains were reserved for palace use, and examples today remain chiefly in the collections of the Palace Museums. They rarely appear abroad, for they were created to delight the emperor’s eye rather than impress foreign courts.

Known as a lianzi wan or “lotus bowl,” its lotus-bud form evokes the curve of a lotus bud, an image deeply rooted in Chinese visual culture and symbolism of renewal and purity. Yet the decoration that unfurls across the surface tells of broader horizons. Along the borders and lotus-petal tips dance trefoil (fleur-de-lys) motifs, complemented by lambrequin borders and lotus loops with under-and-over interlacing. These echo the ornament on earlier Khorasan metalwork, bronze and brass vessels from Central Asia and western Iran, now translated into painted cobalt blue.

During the Yongle reign, imperial records document multiple exchanges with the Khorasan region, including the overland journeys of diplomatic envoy Chen Cheng (1365–1457). In 1414, 1417, and 1420, he travelled to Central Asia and western Iran, including key centres like Herat, then a flourishing centre of metalwork production, bringing news, tribute, and gifts between two great artistic worlds.

Jingdezhen’s painters, tasked with devising endless patterns for porcelain destined for the court, drew inspiration from arriving tribute gifts, wherever elegance and novelty appeared. Absorbing foreign motifs, they adapted them through the lens of Chinese aesthetics, sparking a visual conversation.

What emerged was a style neither wholly Chinese nor wholly foreign, a synthesis the bowl’s floral decoration reflects clearly. This cosmopolitan spirit extends from its borders to its blooms. Inside, a composite scroll of eight-petalled blooms appears fully opened and frontal, without buds or fruit. Exterior sprays of four seasonal flowers, abstracted yet lively, are painted in frilly brushwork. These idealised renderings, atypical of Chinese conventions, recall the stylised floral medallions of Middle Eastern art. The painter’s delicate handling of cobalt blue, prone to "heaping and piling" under the kiln’s heat, creates a velvety rhythm across the porcelain’s surface, a technical mastery that the Yongle kilns made their hallmark.

In its poised form and layered motifs, the bowl captures the Ming court’s blend of intimacy and outreach. Its restrained elegance embodies the court's vision of refinement; its motifs echo the far-reaching curiosity of an emperor who dispatched fleets and envoys in every direction. It stands as an eloquent testament to an age when beauty served as both a language of power and a mirror to the world’s expanding connections.

This bowl belongs to a rare group made exclusively for the imperial court, with most examples preserved in the collections of the Palace Museums. Compare a small group of similar bowls in the Taipei Palace Museum, attributed to the Ming dynasty, 15th century, and illustrated on the museum's website. One from the Ardabil Shrine, now in the National Museum of Iran, illustrated in Takatoshi Misugi, Chinese Porcelain Collections in the Near East: Topkapi and Ardebil, Hong Kong, vol. 3, 1981, no. A.53. One from the collections of George Eumorfopoulos and Mrs Walter Sedgwick, sold in our London rooms, 29th May 1940, lot 220, and now in the British Museum, accession no. 1968,0422.28. One from the collection of A. D. Brankston and Mrs W. Roberts, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, accession no. C.15–1952. A further example sold in our New York rooms, 18th March 2021, lot 130.

來源

香港佳士得2007年5月29日，編號1452