A BLUE AND WHITE 'ZHADOU', Zhengde mark (1506 - 1521), the bulbous body and wide flaring trumpet neck painted in a soft underglaze blue with four dragons floating through scrolling lotus, over...

A BLUE AND WHITE 'ZHADOU', Zhengde mark (1506 - 1521), the bulbous body and wide flaring trumpet neck painted in a soft underglaze blue with four dragons floating through scrolling lotus, over a short flared foot with a band of Ruyi heads, the base with encircled reign mark, 13.1cm high

 

Dragons floating through swaying Lotus

 

This epigraph, taken from Regina Krahls description of a blue and white dragon and lotus dish first sold in these rooms some years ago and dated to the reign of the Xuande Emperor (1426-1435), serves equally well to describe the present vessel around whose sides and rim dragons endlessly circle in their vigorous parade through fields profuse with blossoming lotus. Indeed, the dragon and lotus motif was one of the three most characteristic ceramic designs employed on blue and white porcelains during Zhengdes reign (1506-1521).

 

A number of such vessels are known, and they exhibit some variation in the tone of their cobalt blue, which may range from a pale sky blue to a dark midnight blue; for an example of the former, compare the zhadou from the Meiyintang Collection auctioned by Sothebys, Hong Kong, 7 April 2011, lot 60, and of the latter, compare that auctioned by Christies, Hong Kong, 7 October 2014, lot 3329. Tonal variation is perhaps a less surprising feature of these vessels when it is borne in mind that during the Zhengde reign, cobalt pigment was being variously sourced; a reference in an annal of 1515 notes that at that time, local cobalt was being used, but by the latter part of the reign, imported cobalt had been introduced once more. The colour tone of the present lot compares more closely to that of the Meiyintang example cited above; even more striking, however, is the near identical match provided by a zhadou offered by Nagel, Stuttgart, in their Asian Art sale of 8 December 2014. In terms of its height, proportion, and the execution of its reign mark, as well as in its use of a cobalt pigment producing a lighter, sky blue colour tone in the firing, the Nagel vessel offers the closest possible point of comparison to the one under review here.

 

 

Prof. Alan. J Fletcher, MRIA

 

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