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A WUCAI 'LI BAI' WATERPOT Xuande six-character mark, early 17th century image 1
A WUCAI 'LI BAI' WATERPOT Xuande six-character mark, early 17th century image 2
PROPERTY FROM THE LI FAN THOMPSON COLLECTION 範麗藏品
Lot 130

A WUCAI 'LI BAI' WATERPOT
Xuande six-character mark, early 17th century

15 May 2025, 11:30 BST
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £3,840 inc. premium

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A WUCAI 'LI BAI' WATERPOT

Xuande six-character mark, early 17th century
The figure delicately modelled in restful ease against a baluster wine jar, his tilting head with long whiskers supported by his right arm, clad in long flowing robes decorated in green, yellow, red and aubergine enamels with ruyi heads and flames, the serene face with eyes closed, the wine jar further decorated with peony flowers, the rim of the vase with an apocryphal six-character Xuande mark.
9cm (3 1/2in) long.

Footnotes

十七世紀早期 五彩酒仙式硯滴
礬紅「大明宣德年製」楷書款

Provenance: Dr Carl Kempe (1884-1967), Sweden (label no.860)
The Li Fan Thompson collection, London

Published and Illustrated: B.Gyllensvärd, Chinese Ceramics: In the Carl Kempe Collection, Goteborg, 1964, p.251, no.860

來源: Carl Kempe博士 (1884-1967),瑞典 (標籤編號860)
范麗收藏,倫敦

展覽著錄: B.Gyllensvärd,《Chinese Ceramics: In the Carl Kempe Collection》,哥德堡,1964年,第251頁,編號860

Dr. Carl Kempe (1884-1967) was a prominent Swedish industrialist who served as the CEO of Mo och Domsjö AB, a leading company in the Swedish pulp and paper industry. Dr. Kempe resided at Ekolsund, a historic former Swedish royal palace, where he also maintained his distinguished art collection. As an early and active member of the Oriental Ceramic Society, he amassed one of the finest European collections of Chinese art created in the mid-twentieth century.

Li Bai, one of the most celebrated poets of the Tang dynasty, was famed for his romantic, Daoist spirit and love of wine. Often depicted as a wandering Immortal, he found inspiration in intoxication, seeing it as a gateway to transcendence. See a famille verte waterpot in the form of Li Bai, Kangxi, illustrated in Art of China: Highlights from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, New Haven and London, 2018, p.160.

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