A rare blue and white kendi
Wanli
Painted to each face of the six-lobed compressed globular body with a rectangular panel enclosing floral sprays beneath a key-fret band at the shoulder, applied to one face with a naturalistically modelled tree-trunk spout with high-relief moulded trailing leafy branches, the tall cylindrical neck painted with a bird standing on rockwork below the six-pointed star-shaped rim (restoration to tip of spout),
17.2cm.(6 3/4in.) high
Painted to each face of the six-lobed compressed globular body with a rectangular panel enclosing floral sprays beneath a key-fret band at the shoulder, applied to one face with a naturalistically modelled tree-trunk spout with high-relief moulded trailing leafy branches, the tall cylindrical neck painted with a bird standing on rockwork below the six-pointed star-shaped rim (restoration to tip of spout),
17.2cm.(6 3/4in.) high
Sold for
£2,390
inc. premium
Footnotes
- For a similarly modelled ewer, see J.Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, pp.282-283, no.11.15, where the author notes that such vessels were exported to Europe in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries from China, as evidenced by their presence in the recovered cargoes of ship wrecks. For example a similar ewer was recovered from the San Diego, a Spanish warship attacked by Dutch ships, which sank one kilometre north east of Fortune Island, in the Philippines, on 14 December 1600
Category: Asian Art
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