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A rare blue and white 'Magic Fountain' bottle vase Jiajing
£10,000 - £15,000
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Find your local specialistA rare blue and white 'Magic Fountain' bottle vase
The pear-shaped body painted on either side with an elaborate, tiered fountain issuing six long streams of water from dragon and phoenix-head terminals, supported by a large circular basin raised on four pillars with a qilin at its base, the neck applied with a white-metal mount.
41.3cm (15¾in) high (2).
Footnotes
The dating of this lot is consistent with the result of a thermoluminescence test, Oxford Authentication Ltd, no P102u12.
This unique design is more commonly associated with ewers, and the existence of one in the Lee Kong Chian Art Museum, National University of Singapore with a Jiajing reign mark allows the group to be dated confidently to between 1522 and 1566. Another unmarked example can be found in the British Museum, London, illustrated by J.Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, p.221, no.9:10. See also another example with Ottoman silver mounts, sold at Sotheby's London, 15 November 2000, lot 229.
Only one 'Magic Fountain' vase, in the Percival David Collection, now housed in the British Museum, appears to be in a published collection: see R.Scott and R.Kerr, Ceramic Evolution in the Middle Ming Period. Hongzhi to Wanli (1488-1620), London, 1994, Catalogue no.48. Another example was sold at Sotheby's London, 17 November 1999, lot 907.
The unusual motif of a beast (usually a qilin) as on the present example, elephant or horse, reclining before a large, ornate fountain has puzzled academics for decades. In 1952 the late Sir Percival David argued a link between these fountains and a large silver fountain designed by Guillaume Bouchier for Mangu Khan at Karakorum in 1254, see Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, no.24, Stockholm, pp.1-8. The presence of a similar ewer in a Dutch still life painting by Wilhelm Kalf (1613-1693) illustrates that such ewers had made their way over to Europe by the 17th century, and has led some academics to suggest that the design may have been a commission by the Jesuits in China.