A FINE CHINESE BLUE AND WHITE SQUARE VASE AND COVER, Kangxi (1662-1722)
Height 31.7 cm; 12 1/2 in
BB65
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Of square section, tubular body with flat shoulder, square neck with a roof-shaped cover finished with a square finial, finely decorated in shades of underglaze blue on each of the...
Of square section, tubular body with flat shoulder, square neck with a roof-shaped cover finished with a square finial, finely decorated in shades of underglaze blue on each of the four sides with scenes bounded by zig-zag borders, the scenes with illustrations taken from the novel Autumn in the Han Palace, written by Ma Zhiyuan, on the shoulder a diaper pattern, flower sprays painted on the neck rim, the cover decorated with small panels depicting double-fish motifs, the finial painted on top with a small fu character, the base unglazed apart from a central recessed area glazed and painted with an Artemisia leaf.
Provenance
The Peter and Nancy Thompson Collection, formerly from the Estate of Philip Kappel.
Peter and Nancy Thompson, based in Hong Kong, started collecting in the early 1970's. Pieces from their collection were bought from other famous collections including those of E T Chow, Dr Ip Yee and D F A Riesco. Several pieces from their collections were also published and exhibited, for example in the University of Hull's 1985 exhibition and catalogue Chinese Ceramics of the Transitional Period and the 1996 exhibition and catalogue From the Tang to the Qing. A further group of porcelain was also included in the Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong's 1981 exhibition entitled Transitional Wares and Their Forerunners as well as in other OCS exhibitions.
Literature
Another similar example is in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, museum number:
C.814&A-1910. This one with the same story as ours,
Autumn in the Han Palace, a fictional rendition of the historical story of Wang Zhaojun, a concubine of the Han Emperor Yuan, written by Ma Zhiyuan. It has been suggested that the lady dancing and mounted on horseback with a pipa-guitar is Wang Zhaojun of the Han who was married to a Barbarian in exchange for peace and that this was also the theme in the
Han Gong Qiu drama by the Yuan playwright Ma Zhiyuan.
Two similar examples with scenes probably from the story of Yang-jia-jiang yanji written by by the Ming Author Yong Damu are in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and illustrated in C.J.A. Jorg and J. van Campen, Chinese Ceramics in the Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, London, 1997, pp. 91-92. This tells the story of a female warrior Mu Guiying, and we quote from Jorg; 'who is not from an upper class family, determines to marry the sixth son of one of the Song Emperor's most esteemed generals. She is refused, but adopts the simple expedient of capturing him and saying that she will not let him go unless he agrees to marry her. Her skill as a warrior earns her respect and eventually, when the men of the family have been killed in battle, she leads an army of women'.
