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拍品專文
With its generous proportions and bold white floral designs reserved on a sumptuous pinkish-red ground, this spectacular large bowl exemplifies the best of Hongwu ceramics. The decoration was achieved by drawing the outlines of the design and meticulously painting in the background. It was a time-consuming and painstaking technique, made more difficult by the uncertainty of successfully firing the underglaze copper red.
From its appearance in the Tang dynasty, the use of copper to produce red in high-fired ceramics has proved a challenge to the potter as the colorant is volatile in the firing and can produce an unpredictable range of shades from rich red to brownish grey. Despite the technical difficulties in controlling copper during the firing process, many of the finest underglaze-red decorated porcelains were made during the Hongwu period. The color red has traditionally been associated in China with happiness and celebration, and the Hongwu Emperor was particularly fond of ceramics decorated in copper red.
Large underglaze copper-red bowls with reserve decoration inside and out are exceptionally rare, and the only other published example appears to be the bowl of comparable size (42 cm.) in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collecion of treasures of the Palace Museum – 34 – Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed red (I), Hong Kong, 2000, p. 242, no. 223. Like the current bowl, the Palace Museum bowl is decorated around the mouth rim on both the interior and exterior with a narrow lingzhi band and in the well with a floral scroll band of six lotus blossoms and two further stylized blossoms, each blossom centered by various decorative motifs including a lotus pod, a pomegranate-shaped motif, a taiji (yinyang) roundel, and a roundel divided into three segments. The center of the interior of the Palace Museum bowl is decorated with a spray of peony flowers, which is repeated as a scroll on the exterior, unlike the current bowl which is decorated with chrysanthemums on the interior and exterior. The copper red of the Palace Museum bowl appears to have misfired overall to a silvery or brownish grey.
Amongst smaller Hongwu bowls, there also appears to be only one recorded example wholly reserve-decorated in copper red. Formerly in the Winkworth Collection, this bowl was sold at Christie’s London, 26 November 1974, lot 244, and is now in the Matsuoka Museum, Tokyo. See Selected Masterpieces of the Matsuoka Museum of Art, Inaugural Exhibition, Tokyo, 1975, col. pl. 7. (Fig. 1) The Matsuoka bowl is decorated with a peony scroll on the exterior and a chrysanthemum scroll on the interior above a single spray of flowering peony. In style, the outlines of the Matsuoka bowl are far less precise than those on the current bowl.
Similar combinations of decoration such as that on the current bowl can also be seen on large Hongwu bowls decorated in underglaze copper red on a white ground. Amongst the most comparable is the bowl in the Shanghai Museum (40.5 cm.), illustrated in China’s Jingdezhen Porcelain Through The Ages, Ming Dynasty, Beijing, 1998, p. 32, which differs from the current bowl only in having a band of formalized waves below rim on the exterior. (Fig. 2) Other large Hongwu bowls decorated in underglaze copper red on white grounds with comparable decoration include two in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Underglaze Red Ware of the Ming dynasty, Hong Kong, 1963, pls. 3 (41.3 cm.) and 4 (41 cm.); one formerly in the collection of C. T. Loo , included in the catalogue, Exhibtion of Ming Blue-and-White, Philadelphia, 1949, no. 15 (41.1 cm.); one in the Idemitsu Museum, illustrated in Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1987, no. 149 (40.5 cm.); and the bowl in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/42496) (40 cm.). (Fig. 3)
Together, all of these bowls indicate a standardization of decorative vocabulary by the early Ming period whereby a limited number of motifs available from pattern books were distributed in an apparently random way. This group uses chrysanthemum, peony and lotus meander either on the exterior or interior around a medallion issuing a floral stem from one side and lingzhi, wave and classic scroll borders in various combinations and positions around the rim. All, however, consistently employ the same band of petal panels enclosing a penciled flower around the base above key-pattern around the foot.
From its appearance in the Tang dynasty, the use of copper to produce red in high-fired ceramics has proved a challenge to the potter as the colorant is volatile in the firing and can produce an unpredictable range of shades from rich red to brownish grey. Despite the technical difficulties in controlling copper during the firing process, many of the finest underglaze-red decorated porcelains were made during the Hongwu period. The color red has traditionally been associated in China with happiness and celebration, and the Hongwu Emperor was particularly fond of ceramics decorated in copper red.
Large underglaze copper-red bowls with reserve decoration inside and out are exceptionally rare, and the only other published example appears to be the bowl of comparable size (42 cm.) in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collecion of treasures of the Palace Museum – 34 – Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed red (I), Hong Kong, 2000, p. 242, no. 223. Like the current bowl, the Palace Museum bowl is decorated around the mouth rim on both the interior and exterior with a narrow lingzhi band and in the well with a floral scroll band of six lotus blossoms and two further stylized blossoms, each blossom centered by various decorative motifs including a lotus pod, a pomegranate-shaped motif, a taiji (yinyang) roundel, and a roundel divided into three segments. The center of the interior of the Palace Museum bowl is decorated with a spray of peony flowers, which is repeated as a scroll on the exterior, unlike the current bowl which is decorated with chrysanthemums on the interior and exterior. The copper red of the Palace Museum bowl appears to have misfired overall to a silvery or brownish grey.
Amongst smaller Hongwu bowls, there also appears to be only one recorded example wholly reserve-decorated in copper red. Formerly in the Winkworth Collection, this bowl was sold at Christie’s London, 26 November 1974, lot 244, and is now in the Matsuoka Museum, Tokyo. See Selected Masterpieces of the Matsuoka Museum of Art, Inaugural Exhibition, Tokyo, 1975, col. pl. 7. (Fig. 1) The Matsuoka bowl is decorated with a peony scroll on the exterior and a chrysanthemum scroll on the interior above a single spray of flowering peony. In style, the outlines of the Matsuoka bowl are far less precise than those on the current bowl.
Similar combinations of decoration such as that on the current bowl can also be seen on large Hongwu bowls decorated in underglaze copper red on a white ground. Amongst the most comparable is the bowl in the Shanghai Museum (40.5 cm.), illustrated in China’s Jingdezhen Porcelain Through The Ages, Ming Dynasty, Beijing, 1998, p. 32, which differs from the current bowl only in having a band of formalized waves below rim on the exterior. (Fig. 2) Other large Hongwu bowls decorated in underglaze copper red on white grounds with comparable decoration include two in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Underglaze Red Ware of the Ming dynasty, Hong Kong, 1963, pls. 3 (41.3 cm.) and 4 (41 cm.); one formerly in the collection of C. T. Loo , included in the catalogue, Exhibtion of Ming Blue-and-White, Philadelphia, 1949, no. 15 (41.1 cm.); one in the Idemitsu Museum, illustrated in Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1987, no. 149 (40.5 cm.); and the bowl in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/42496) (40 cm.). (Fig. 3)
Together, all of these bowls indicate a standardization of decorative vocabulary by the early Ming period whereby a limited number of motifs available from pattern books were distributed in an apparently random way. This group uses chrysanthemum, peony and lotus meander either on the exterior or interior around a medallion issuing a floral stem from one side and lingzhi, wave and classic scroll borders in various combinations and positions around the rim. All, however, consistently employ the same band of petal panels enclosing a penciled flower around the base above key-pattern around the foot.