An exceptionally rare blue and white 'kui-dragon' bowl, Mark and...
Property from an Important Private Collection
An exceptionally rare blue and white 'kui-dragon' bowl,
Mark and period of Chenghua
顯赫私人收藏
明成化 青花夔龍紋盌 《大明成化年製》款
Japanese wood box
16.8 cm
Condition Report:
In overall good condition, with the mouthrim slightly and evenly polished; there is a curved superficial firing mark to the glaze at the interior of the bowl (approx. 8cm); some expected minor surface wear.
整體品相良好。口沿輕磨，盌心釉面見一處約8公分弧形劃痕(或為窰傷）。器面輕微磨痕，屬正常。
Catalogue Note:
Elegance of Chenghua Imperial Porcelain Painting
Dragons, as mythical animals, leave artists in theory total freedom of interpretation, but in China, their physique has always been quite strictly defined. The various species that exist, are clearly differentiated and the present creatures, with only two legs, a small body and a dramatic scrolling tail, are kui (or xiangcao, ‘sweet grass’) dragons. Kui are the dragons associated with Tibetan Buddhist contexts and are depicted in Buddhist architecture and on objects used in Buddhist ceremonies. They have developed from the Indian makara, a water-guardian spirit used particularly as an architectural element to protect gateways. In Tibet, makaras formed an integral part of arch-like structures – derived from the Indian torana gateways – that were used to frame Buddhist figures both in three- and two-dimensional images.
As Tibetan Buddhist iconography became influential in the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), such gateways incorporating a pair of makaras were in China adopted for religious buildings. An early example is the Cloud Terrace on the Juyongguan mountain pass of the Great Wall, outside Beijing. This platform, which originally supported three white dagobas and was completed in 1345, is carved with Tibetan Buddhist imagery and inscribed with sutra texts. The arch-shaped reliefs around its passageway show the classic composition that is also seen in the Ming period: a garuda between two spirit figures, or apsaras, at the top, a pair of makaras with curling tails at the shoulders, and a sequence of animals, placed above each other, along the jambs of the arch.
The Chenghua Emperor was a fervent sponsor of Buddhist (as well as Daoist) causes, who himself dressed as a monk during Buddhist ceremonies held at court. In the second year of his reign, he agreed to have a new temple built, Cirensi, at the site of the Baoguosi in Beijing, where his mother’s younger brother (or cousin, according to some reports) had been made abbot. A commemorative text that the Emperor wrote on the construction of this temple, preserved on a stone stele that still stands in the temple grounds, attests to his personal attention to this project.
Another, more important temple structure erected under the Chenghua Emperor, in 1473, is the Zhenjuesi (‘Temple of True Awakening’), better known as Wutasi (‘Five Pagoda Temple’), built in the Tibetan style with five pagodas on top of a cubical base. The main entrance to the building is surrounded by an arch of the same composition as that on Juyongguan, with two makara dragons on either side at the top.
According to Fang Chaoying, “More Buddhist temples seem to have been built or rebuilt in Peking during the Ch’eng-hua and Wan-li reigns than in other periods of the Ming dynasty.” (L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds, Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368 – 1644, New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1976, vol. 1, p. 303). Buddhist motifs such as the Eight Buddhist Emblems, double Vajra and inscriptions in the Tibetan script, are well known on Chenghua imperial porcelains and their appearance seems to have increased in the later years of the reign, but this makara-style dragon with a lotus spray in its mouth was very rarely depicted. Liu Xinyuan, who excavated the Chenghua remains at the imperial kiln site, suggested that “objects decorated with religious motifs were made in and after the 17th year of the Chenghua reign (1481), when the court was consumed with religious activities” (A Legacy of Chenghua: Imperial Porcelain of the Chenghua Reign Excavated from Zhushan, Jingdezhen, Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1993, p. 29 Chinese, p. 70 English).
A date in the later years of the Chenghua period is also suggested by this bowl’s square reign mark. The porcelain production of the Chenghua reign can be divided into three periods, of which the last is characterized by the most mature style of decoration and the highest quality, by far. The square reign mark is found on the most exquisite Chenghua pieces, particularly on doucai porcelains and copies of Song Ru and guan wares.
Only two complete companion pieces to the present bowl appear to be recorded, one in the Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Chenghua ciqi tezhan tulu/Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Ch’eng-hua Porcelain Ware, 1465-1487, Palace Museum, Taipei, 2003, no. 18; the other in the Shanghai Museum, published in Lu Minghua, Shanghai Bowuguan zangpin yanjiu daxi/Studies of the Shanghai Museum...
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Property from an Important Private Collection
An exceptionally rare blue and white 'kui-dragon' bowl,
Mark and period of Chenghua
顯赫私人收藏
明成化 青花夔龍紋盌 《大明成化年製》款
Japanese wood box
16.8 cm
Condition Report:
In overall good condition, with the mouthrim slightly and evenly polished; there is a curved superficial firing mark to the glaze at the interior of the bowl (approx. 8cm); some expected minor surface wear.
整體品相良好。口沿輕磨，盌心釉面見一處約8公分弧形劃痕(或為窰傷）。器面輕微磨痕，屬正常。
Catalogue Note:
Elegance of Chenghua Imperial Porcelain Painting
Dragons, as mythical animals, leave artists in theory total freedom of interpretation, but in China, their physique has always been quite strictly defined. The various species that exist, are clearly differentiated and the present creatures, with only two legs, a small body and a dramatic scrolling tail, are kui (or xiangcao, ‘sweet grass’) dragons. Kui are the dragons associated with Tibetan Buddhist contexts and are depicted in Buddhist architecture and on objects used in Buddhist ceremonies. They have developed from the Indian makara, a water-guardian spirit used particularly as an architectural element to protect gateways. In Tibet, makaras formed an integral part of arch-like structures – derived from the Indian torana gateways – that were used to frame Buddhist figures both in three- and two-dimensional images.
As Tibetan Buddhist iconography became influential in the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), such gateways incorporating a pair of makaras were in China adopted for religious buildings. An early example is the Cloud Terrace on the Juyongguan mountain pass of the Great Wall, outside Beijing. This platform, which originally supported three white dagobas and was completed in 1345, is carved with Tibetan Buddhist imagery and inscribed with sutra texts. The arch-shaped reliefs around its passageway show the classic composition that is also seen in the Ming period: a garuda between two spirit figures, or apsaras, at the top, a pair of makaras with curling tails at the shoulders, and a sequence of animals, placed above each other, along the jambs of the arch.
The Chenghua Emperor was a fervent sponsor of Buddhist (as well as Daoist) causes, who himself dressed as a monk during Buddhist ceremonies held at court. In the second year of his reign, he agreed to have a new temple built, Cirensi, at the site of the Baoguosi in Beijing, where his mother’s younger brother (or cousin, according to some reports) had been made abbot. A commemorative text that the Emperor wrote on the construction of this temple, preserved on a stone stele that still stands in the temple grounds, attests to his personal attention to this project.
Another, more important temple structure erected under the Chenghua Emperor, in 1473, is the Zhenjuesi (‘Temple of True Awakening’), better known as Wutasi (‘Five Pagoda Temple’), built in the Tibetan style with five pagodas on top of a cubical base. The main entrance to the building is surrounded by an arch of the same composition as that on Juyongguan, with two makara dragons on either side at the top.
According to Fang Chaoying, “More Buddhist temples seem to have been built or rebuilt in Peking during the Ch’eng-hua and Wan-li reigns than in other periods of the Ming dynasty.” (L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds, Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368 – 1644, New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1976, vol. 1, p. 303). Buddhist motifs such as the Eight Buddhist Emblems, double Vajra and inscriptions in the Tibetan script, are well known on Chenghua imperial porcelains and their appearance seems to have increased in the later years of the reign, but this makara-style dragon with a lotus spray in its mouth was very rarely depicted. Liu Xinyuan, who excavated the Chenghua remains at the imperial kiln site, suggested that “objects decorated with religious motifs were made in and after the 17th year of the Chenghua reign (1481), when the court was consumed with religious activities” (A Legacy of Chenghua: Imperial Porcelain of the Chenghua Reign Excavated from Zhushan, Jingdezhen, Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1993, p. 29 Chinese, p. 70 English).
A date in the later years of the Chenghua period is also suggested by this bowl’s square reign mark. The porcelain production of the Chenghua reign can be divided into three periods, of which the last is characterized by the most mature style of decoration and the highest quality, by far. The square reign mark is found on the most exquisite Chenghua pieces, particularly on doucai porcelains and copies of Song Ru and guan wares.
Only two complete companion pieces to the present bowl appear to be recorded, one in the Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Chenghua ciqi tezhan tulu/Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Ch’eng-hua Porcelain Ware, 1465-1487, Palace Museum, Taipei, 2003, no. 18; the other in the Shanghai Museum, published in Lu Minghua, Shanghai Bowuguan zangpin yanjiu daxi/Studies of the Shanghai Museum...
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