 |
|
| 72 A fine and rare cloisonné enamel vase Ming dynasty, early 16th century Height: 8 3/8 in, 21.3 cm the low, facetted body stands on a splayed ring foot, rises to a long, cylindrical neck and terminates in a thickened mouth rim. The neck is applied with two loop handles, each issuing from a heavily gilded, chased lion mask. The vase is decorated with scrolling lotus flowers, and the handles and rim with ruyi-shaped clouds, all in various colours on a turquoise ground. |
|
|
Basil Gray writes about the origins of such facetted vases in “The Influence of Near Eastern Metalwork on Chinese Ceramics” and suggests that they lie in Persian metalwork. He illustrates an engraved and inlaid bronze bottle from the Seljuk period, no later in date than the 12th century and now in the Victoria & Albert Museum, which has a similar body but a trumpet-shaped neck (pl. 6d). The form is encountered in Chinese ceramics of the Xuande period where it has acquired a cylindrical neck and loop handles issuing from animal masks (pl. 6c), and it is again found in ceramics of the Zhengde and Yongzheng periods. For comparison of Xuande and Yongzheng vases, see Jenyns, Ming Pottery and Porcelain, pls. 51a and b. In Chinese and Japanese Cloisonné Enamels, Garner illustrates a cloisonné enamel example from the Kitson collection dating to the first half of the 16th century as pl. 44B, and he comments that this piece resembles the Persian bronze bottles more closely than do the porcelain examples (p. 75). |