30.
A ‘BLUE AND WHITE’ BOWL
Ming dynasty, Tianqi period
21,6 cm diam.
Apocryphal Da Ming Chenghua nianzhi six-character mark.
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
Inv. n. 3483.
The bowl is painted on the exterior with four medallions, each enclosing two of the Eight Daoist Immortals, reserved against a ground of shou (“longevity”) characters, below the honeycomb floral diaper band around the rim. The interior is painted in the centre with a medallion enclosing Shoulao, the God of Longevity riding atop a crane, with a wave and flower design around the interior rim.
The auspicious Daoist decoration symbolises the wish for long life.
Ten similar bowls are in the collection of the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul (for one example, see R. Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, 3 voll., London 1986, n. 1282) and another is in the British Museum, London (J. Harrison-Hall, Catalogue of the Late Yuan and Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London 2001, n. 12:20, the author notes that shards from similar bowls have been found among the cargo of the São Gonçalo, wrecked in 1630 on a reef near Port Elizabeth in Plettenberg Bay off the coast of South Africa: see H. Miedema, Kraakporselein en Overgangsgoed, Leeuwarden 1964, n. 156).
Another nearly identical bowl is in the Musée national Adrien Dubouché, Limoges (C. Shimizu (edited by), L’Odyssée de la porcelaine chinoise. Collections du Musée national de Céramique, Sèvres et du musée national Adrien Dubouché, Limoges, exhibition catalogue, Paris 2003, p. 114, n. 46). It is very interesting in our context to note that this bowl in Limoges was given as a gift to that museum in 1872 by Albert Jacquemart, who probably sold to Placido de Sangro also the bowl here discussed.
See also the related bowl in the Musée Guimet, Paris, Grandidier Collection (inv. G2665), the similar bowl in the Princesshof Museum, Leeuwarden (inv. NO 01285) and the related piece in the Groninger Museum (inv. 1989.0311).
A bowl in the Butler collection (M. Butler, Late Ming. Chinese Porcelain from the Butler Collections, exhibition catalogue, Luxembourg 2008, p. 31, n. 4, dated to late Wanli period) is very similar to this for the round medallions with the Eight Immortals and the upper geometrical and lower ruyi-heads bands, differing for a carved trellis ground on the wall instead of the shou characters.
Similar bowls, especially for the charactes ground, are also depicted in still-life oil paintings, such as those by the French author Jacques Linard (1597-1645), painted in 1627 and 1638 respectively.
Jacques Linard, school of, Les Cinq Sens et les quatre éléments, 1627. Paris, Musée du Louvre.
Jacques Linard, The Five Senses, 1638. Strasbourg, Musée des Beaux-Arts.
