LOT 114
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A rare blue and white 'lotus' pear-shaped vase (Yuhuchunping), Ming dynasty, Yongle period
作品估价：USD 80,000 - 150,000
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图录号：
114
拍品名称：
A rare blue and white 'lotus' pear-shaped vase (Yuhuchunping), Ming dynasty, Yongle period
拍品描述：
Height 11⅜ in., 29 cm
出处
Japanese Private Collection.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 2nd May 2005, lot 634.
图录说明
The twenty-one year reign of the Yongle Emperor (r. 1403-1424) marked a transformational period in the history of Chinese porcelain; one that would indelibly shape the course of ceramic art both at home and abroad. Among the most iconic creations of this era is unquestionably the yuhuchun (‘jade bottle spring’) vase, which reached new aesthetic heights in the imperial kilns of Jingdezhen during Yongle’s reign. This pear-shaped form, with its graceful swelling body rising to a slender neck and flared mouth, found perfection in balance, proportion, and restraint—an embodiment of Ming court sophistication.
While the yuhuchunping form originated in the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), Yongle examples exhibit a radical departure from their predecessors. Yuan versions, for example, tend to be narrow, robust and heavily decorated and often faceted with densely packed cartouches filled with bold Buddhist motifs. In contrast, Yongle potters refined the silhouette into a more broad bottle with an elegant taper and explored a new decorative schema typified by clarity, rhythm, and spaciousness. This shift signaled a profound sinicization of imperial ceramic design, marked by a studied use of negative space, tonal variation in cobalt washes, and the careful arrangement of banded designs to enhance the vessel’s contours. The sparing yet deliberate placement of lotus scrolls, formal bands, floral sprays and crashing waves thus reflect a conscious embrace of visual serenity and subtle grace, influenced in part by court painting, Buddhist aesthetics and, above all, the technological advancements in ceramic technology at the imperial kilns of Jingdezhen.
Blue and white wares from this extraordinary period of production were particularly coveted by the courts of Persia and the Middle East, spreading a love for Chinese aesthetics as far west as Europe along the Silk Road. The Yongle court’s promotion of maritime diplomacy under the eunuch admiral Zheng He was particularly important to the export of such porcelains to the Islamic world, where they were received with reverence and emulated for centuries, including in Iznik and Safavid ceramics. Compare, for example, three other yuhuchunping painted with related floral designs dedicated, among hundreds of other pieces of early Ming porcelain, to the Ardabil Shrine in Iran by Shah Abbas in 1611, illustrated in T. Misugi, Chinese Porcelain Collections in the Near East: Topkapi and Ardebil, vol. 3, Hong Kong, 1981, pls A72-4.
The legacy of these vases in China was to live on long after the death of the Yongle Emperor and, indeed, the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1644. Early Ming ceramics had become widely accepted by connoisseurs as the among the finest porcelain ever produced and, inheriting the ‘Mandate of Heaven’ from their predecessors, the early Qing emperors – particularly under the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong reigns –were keen to celebrate this illustrious history with themselves at the helm, embracing the cultural and spiritual refinement the pieces represented. Yongle period vases of this type were collected and preserved in the Qing Court Collection and some even sent to Jingdezhen to serve as prototypes for contemporary imitations. Compare, for example, a Yongle yuhuchunping of this design preserved in the National Palace Museum, Taipei (accession no. 014911), included in Porcelain of the National Palace Museum: Blue-and-White Ware of the Ming Dynasty, vol. I, Hong Kong, 1963, pl. 2, together with a vase of more common design of composite flower scroll and different design borders (gu ci 014910), pl. 1; and another bottle of the latter design, also preserved in the Qing Court Collection and still in the Palace Museum, Beijing, in Geng Baochang, ed., Gugong Bowuyuan cang Ming chu qinghua ci / Early Ming Blue-and-White Porcelain in the Palace Museum, vol. I, Beijing, 2002, pl. 77.
Fascinatingly, yuhuchunping of this type appear to be significantly rarer than related ewers of similar bulbous form and design. The Ottoman Imperial collection in Istanbul, for example, boasts at least six pear-shaped ewers from this period but apparently no yuhuchunping, implying a much more limited initial supply of vases compared to their spouted counterparts, and perhaps more strictly limited to the Yongle court itself; see Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, vol. II, London, 1986, pp 518-520.
Compare also two further yuhuchunping with other designs recovered in 1994 from the Yongle stratum of the Ming Imperial kiln site at Dongmentou, Zhushan, included in the exhibition Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain Excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1996, cat. nos 60-61; another of this design illustrated in Helen Ling and Edward T. Chow, The Complete Collection of Ming Dynasty Kingtehchen Porcelain from The Hall of Disciplined Learning – Collection of E. T. Chow, vol. I, Hong Kong, 1950, no. 16, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 3rd December 2021, lot 2941; and another of composite flower design from the collection of Au Bak Ling, sold at Christies’s Hong Kong, 26th September 2024, lot 5.
With its flowing lotus scrolls, luminous cobalt blue tones, and harmonious silhouette, this vase exemplifies the aesthetic revolution of the Yongle period—an object not merely of beauty but of cultural synthesis, imperial ambition, and enduring influence.
出处
Japanese Private Collection.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 2nd May 2005, lot 634.
图录说明
The twenty-one year reign of the Yongle Emperor (r. 1403-1424) marked a transformational period in the history of Chinese porcelain; one that would indelibly shape the course of ceramic art both at home and abroad. Among the most iconic creations of this era is unquestionably the yuhuchun (‘jade bottle spring’) vase, which reached new aesthetic heights in the imperial kilns of Jingdezhen during Yongle’s reign. This pear-shaped form, with its graceful swelling body rising to a slender neck and flared mouth, found perfection in balance, proportion, and restraint—an embodiment of Ming court sophistication.
While the yuhuchunping form originated in the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), Yongle examples exhibit a radical departure from their predecessors. Yuan versions, for example, tend to be narrow, robust and heavily decorated and often faceted with densely packed cartouches filled with bold Buddhist motifs. In contrast, Yongle potters refined the silhouette into a more broad bottle with an elegant taper and explored a new decorative schema typified by clarity, rhythm, and spaciousness. This shift signaled a profound sinicization of imperial ceramic design, marked by a studied use of negative space, tonal variation in cobalt washes, and the careful arrangement of banded designs to enhance the vessel’s contours. The sparing yet deliberate placement of lotus scrolls, formal bands, floral sprays and crashing waves thus reflect a conscious embrace of visual serenity and subtle grace, influenced in part by court painting, Buddhist aesthetics and, above all, the technological advancements in ceramic technology at the imperial kilns of Jingdezhen.
Blue and white wares from this extraordinary period of production were particularly coveted by the courts of Persia and the Middle East, spreading a love for Chinese aesthetics as far west as Europe along the Silk Road. The Yongle court’s promotion of maritime diplomacy under the eunuch admiral Zheng He was particularly important to the export of such porcelains to the Islamic world, where they were received with reverence and emulated for centuries, including in Iznik and Safavid ceramics. Compare, for example, three other yuhuchunping painted with related floral designs dedicated, among hundreds of other pieces of early Ming porcelain, to the Ardabil Shrine in Iran by Shah Abbas in 1611, illustrated in T. Misugi, Chinese Porcelain Collections in the Near East: Topkapi and Ardebil, vol. 3, Hong Kong, 1981, pls A72-4.
The legacy of these vases in China was to live on long after the death of the Yongle Emperor and, indeed, the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1644. Early Ming ceramics had become widely accepted by connoisseurs as the among the finest porcelain ever produced and, inheriting the ‘Mandate of Heaven’ from their predecessors, the early Qing emperors – particularly under the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong reigns –were keen to celebrate this illustrious history with themselves at the helm, embracing the cultural and spiritual refinement the pieces represented. Yongle period vases of this type were collected and preserved in the Qing Court Collection and some even sent to Jingdezhen to serve as prototypes for contemporary imitations. Compare, for example, a Yongle yuhuchunping of this design preserved in the National Palace Museum, Taipei (accession no. 014911), included in Porcelain of the National Palace Museum: Blue-and-White Ware of the Ming Dynasty, vol. I, Hong Kong, 1963, pl. 2, together with a vase of more common design of composite flower scroll and different design borders (gu ci 014910), pl. 1; and another bottle of the latter design, also preserved in the Qing Court Collection and still in the Palace Museum, Beijing, in Geng Baochang, ed., Gugong Bowuyuan cang Ming chu qinghua ci / Early Ming Blue-and-White Porcelain in the Palace Museum, vol. I, Beijing, 2002, pl. 77.
Fascinatingly, yuhuchunping of this type appear to be significantly rarer than related ewers of similar bulbous form and design. The Ottoman Imperial collection in Istanbul, for example, boasts at least six pear-shaped ewers from this period but apparently no yuhuchunping, implying a much more limited initial supply of vases compared to their spouted counterparts, and perhaps more strictly limited to the Yongle court itself; see Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, vol. II, London, 1986, pp 518-520.
Compare also two further yuhuchunping with other designs recovered in 1994 from the Yongle stratum of the Ming Imperial kiln site at Dongmentou, Zhushan, included in the exhibition Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain Excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1996, cat. nos 60-61; another of this design illustrated in Helen Ling and Edward T. Chow, The Complete Collection of Ming Dynasty Kingtehchen Porcelain from The Hall of Disciplined Learning – Collection of E. T. Chow, vol. I, Hong Kong, 1950, no. 16, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 3rd December 2021, lot 2941; and another of composite flower design from the collection of Au Bak Ling, sold at Christies’s Hong Kong, 26th September 2024, lot 5.
With its flowing lotus scrolls, luminous cobalt blue tones, and harmonious silhouette, this vase exemplifies the aesthetic revolution of the Yongle period—an object not merely of beauty but of cultural synthesis, imperial ambition, and enduring influence.