For Emperor, Sultan and Shah

Regina Krahl

A ‘lotus meiping’ is a type of vessel made at Jingdezhen virtually for as long as the kilns made blue-and-white porcelain; but it is the version of the Yongle period (1403-1424), where form and decoration had undergone critical scrutiny and been optimized through court intervention, that became a classic. This early Ming (1368-1644) period has in later periods always been considered the pinnacle of blue-and-white production.

Yongle meiping stand out through their harmonious proportions, which imperial designers had subtly recast compared to the Yuan (1279-1368) and Hongwu (1368-1398) prototypes: The profile became more mellow, curving in a fluid, unbroken line from the narrow waisted neck over the well-rounded shoulder, narrowing down in a gentle curve before flaring again very slightly towards a fairly narrow base. This silhouette makes the voluminous vessel appear elegant, while at the same time creating a satisfactory optical balance and sound physical stability. Yongle lotus scrolls were also refashioned, with blooms and leaves now being accentuated with painted detail, and flowers effectively set in scene by a network of scrolling stems, arranged in complex curvilinear patterns. The peculiarity of this early cobalt painting to form minute dots along the painted brush lines, also known as ‘heaping and piling’, was in the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) considered such a charming and indicative characteristic of the best blue-and-white ever made, that it was imitated by the deliberately painting of tiny dots onto motifs in early Ming style, since at that time, the cobalt solution no longer provoked this effect fortuitously (fig. 1). The ‘heaping and piling’ also often caused less desirable dark spots to burn through the glaze surface, but on the present vase, the complete design has retained its beautiful blue colour.

Vases of this type appear to have been universally approved of and are preserved in the palace museums in Beijing and Taipei as well as in the Middle Eastern royal collections of the Ottoman Sultans, still remaining in Topkapi Saray, Istanbul, and of the Safavid Shahs, as preserved in the Ardabil Shrine in Iran. In China, meiping were generally used as storage vessels for wine and some are retaining a cover. In the Ming dynasty, they also seem to have played an important role in imperial burials, where different numbers were apparently granted according to rank. Kong Fanzhi writes (Wenwu, 1985, no. 12, pp. 90-92) that four blue-and-white meiping were reserved for an Emperor's tomb, two meiping, either both blue-and-white or one blue-and-white and one white, for the tomb of an Empress or Dowager Empress, and a single blue-and-white vase for the tomb of a Prince or Princess. Yet, these formulae do not seem to have been strictly adhered to but, whenever possible, exceeded. Four covered blue-and-white meiping were excavated, for example, from the tomb of Liang Zhuangwang, a grandson of the Yongle Emperor, and his wife, who were buried exceptionally lavishly, probably above their station, with massive amounts of gold, silver, jade and jewels.

Liang Zhuangwang died in 1441, his wife in 1451, and their joint mausoleum contained two meiping painted with lotus scrolls between a lingzhi scroll above and petal panels below, and two with lotus scrolls between petal panel borders; one of these had been placed in the tomb’s front room and three in a niche in the back chamber (Liang Zhu, ed., Liang Zhuang wang mu/Mausoleum of Prince Liang Zhuangwang, Beijing, 2007, vol. 1, pp. 74-6, figs 91-3; and vol. 2, pls 9:1, 14 and 72-9). Although many items in the tomb dated from the Yongle period, the meiping were clearly no longer produced under Yongle imperial supervision. Just a few decades later, much of the former excellence had already been lost: the neck is lacking the subtle waisted curve seen on the present vase; the lingzhi-decorated pair in particular has a less generous profile; lotus petals and leaves are rendered in solid colour without any details; and the cobalt blue is darker and much less clear.

The National Palace Museum, Taipei, holds a slightly larger (34.5 cm) Yongle meiping of the present design, which was included in the exhibition Mingdai chunian ciqi tezhan mulu/Catalogue of a Special Exhibition of Early Ming Period Porcelain, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1982, no. 12; a much smaller (24.9 cm) example is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Geng Baochang, ed., Gugong Bowuyuan cang Ming chu qinghua ci [Early Ming blue-and-white porcelain in the Palace Museum], Beijing, 2002, vol. 1, pl. 16. In both catalogues, these vases are shown next to smaller Yongle meiping with a different lotus design, with blooms, buds and leaves depicted in a more naturalistic fashion, together with other water weeds, see Taipei, op.cit., no. 13 and Geng, op.cit., pl. 17.

The lotus as depicted on the present vase, with its fanciful curled pointed leaves, is considered as Buddhist lotus, emphasizing its symbolic significance as support of Buddhist deities and representation of purity – rising immaculately clean out of muddy waters – over its sheer aesthetic aspect as embellishment of south China’s scenic beauty. Similar stylized lotus scrolls are in the Yongle period also seen on the mandorla of Buddhist figures depicted in gilt bronze or silk embroidery, on embroidered pendants made to adorn Buddhist figures, on lacquer sutra covers, and in other Buddhist contexts; see James C.Y. Watt and Denise Patry Leidy, Defining Yongle. Imperial Art in Early Fifteenth-Century China, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2005, pls 22, 24, 34, 35.

Vases of this design were probably among the diplomatic gifts transported by the eunuch Zheng He (1371–1433), under whose command vast fleets undertook seven maritime expeditions between 1405 and 1433 to ports all over Asia and as far as East Africa, exchanging presents and tributes; or they may have been exchanged over land by Timurid missions that arrived at the Yongle court from Samarkand and Herat, or the Chinese return embassies to the Timurid empire, led by the court official Chen Cheng (1365–1457). They entered the two important historic porcelain collections in the Middle East, in Iran and Turkey, the former probably through direct exchange, the latter indirectly through later conquests or purchases: a much larger example (41 cm) from the Ardabil Shrine collection in Iran is illustrated in John Alexander Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, Washington, D.C., 1956, pl. 51, no. 29.409, perhaps the vase illustrated as remaining in the Shrine after the bulk of the collection had been transferred to the National Museum of Iran in Tehran, in T. Misugi, Chinese Porcelain Collections in the Near East: Topkapi and Ardebil, Hong Kong, 1981, vol. 3, p. 353; a vase of the same size and a slightly larger one are recorded in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, ed. John Ayers, London, 1986, vol. 2, no. 623.

Other meiping of this design and of similar size are in the British Museum, London, from the Sir Percival David Collection, included in Margaret Medley, Oriental Ceramics. The World's Great Collections, vol. 6, Tokyo, 1982, no. 104; and in the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo, illustrated in Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1987, pl. 630. Only three such meiping appear to have been offered at auction over the last eighty years or so: one from the collection of Major Lindsay F. Hay in our London rooms, 25th June 1946, lot 61; another, illustrated in Mayuyama, Seventy Years, vol. I, Tokyo, 1976, no. 740, p. 246, at Christie's New York, 20th September 2002, lot 313, and in our New York rooms, 20th March 2007, lot 750; the third in our London rooms, 17th November 1999, lot 744.

敬獻天潢

康蕊君

蓮紋梅瓶自景德鎮產青花瓷以來便有燒造，然其中經典非永樂（1403-24年）莫屬。因宮廷督造，永樂梅瓶集前朝之大成，無論器形、紋飾，皆一絲不苟。明初永樂垂範後世，青花瓷於此朝登峰造極。

永樂梅瓶比例勻和，出類拔萃，乃御窰匠依元代（1279-1368年）及洪武朝（1368-98年）式樣摸索而成：窄頸豐肩，緩收於腹，底足斂束，幾欲外撇，線條流暢圓柔，一氣呵成。器形敦碩，輪廓恬雅，觀之賞心悅目，陳之平穩妥當。永樂纏枝蓮紋亦有別於前朝，運筆修飾花葉微末之處，纏枝牽繞花蓬，疏密錯落，飄曳蜿蜒。筆觸所及多見鈷藍細點，稱「黑疵」，乃早期青花畫片特色，後受清代（1644-1911年）崇愛，被奉為上乘青花獨有之美；清代鈷料已無雜質凝結，然為求明初意蘊，仍刻意仿繪黑疵（圖一）。鈷料堆積難免形成深斑，窰燒時透於釉面，不討人喜，而此件梅瓶鈷藍紋飾瑰麗無瑕，殊為難得。

青花纏枝蓮紋梅瓶廣受青睞，除兩岸故宮外，中東皇室亦有收藏，如奧斯曼蘇丹舊藏，現仍貯伊斯坦堡托普卡比宮，及薩法維王朝舊藏，貯伊朗阿德比爾寺。中國多以梅瓶作酒器，時而配蓋。明朝，梅瓶亦與皇家墓葬息息相關，依位份尊卑，所用數量各有差別。孔繁峙（《文物》，1985年，編號12，頁90-92）曾梳理道，皇帝陵寢用梅瓶四件，皆為青花，太后、皇后用兩件，或皆為青花，或一青花、一白釉，皇子、公主則用一件，只青花。然而，上述制式並未嚴守，逾矩之事不足為奇。比較帶蓋梅瓶四件，永樂帝皇孫梁莊王墓出土，梁莊王與王妃同穴而葬，墓室奢華，金銀珠玉不計其數，非尋常皇嗣所能及。

梁莊王薨於1441年，其妃1451年，合葬墓內，兩件梅瓶肩上繪靈芝，足上繪蓮瓣，器身繪纏枝蓮紋，另兩件肩、足皆繪蓮瓣，器身繪纏枝蓮紋；一件置於墓穴前廳，其餘三件收在後室一龕內（《梁莊王墓》，北京，2007年，卷1，頁74-6，圖91-3；及卷2，圖版9:1，14及72-9）。隨葬品中永樂器物不在少數，然四件梅瓶斷非永樂督造；僅數十載，昔時榮光已然難復：隨葬四例頸部弧線生硬，不及此件柔和，二靈芝例輪廓尤顯貧瘦，不比此件豐勻，蓮瓣及葉發色凝滯，不如此件明澈，鈷藍深沉，不似此件輕靈。

台北故宮可舉永樂梅瓶一件，尺寸略大（34.5公分），紋飾相同，展於《明代初年瓷器特展》，故宮博物院，台北，1982年，編號12；北京故宮有一件較小（24.9公分），見耿寶昌編，《故宮博物院藏明初青花瓷》，北京，2002年，卷1，圖版16。上述二例書中插圖皆與一件永樂梅瓶作比，該梅瓶尺寸較小，蓮紋相異，花葉芽苞自然寫實，且繪水藻橫斜，見台北故宮前述出處，編號13，及耿寶昌前述出處，編號17。

此梅瓶之纏枝蓮尖葉彎卷，乃佛教蓮華，為佛菩薩法座，因出淤泥而不染，象徵無垢清淨，其佛教寓意尤勝眼中景致。永樂一朝，纏枝蓮紋亦多用於金銅或絲織佛像背光、佛像刺繡墜飾、髹漆護經板等佛教題材，見屈志仁、Denise Patry Leidy，《Defining Yongle. Imperial Art in Early Fifteenth-Century China》，大都會藝術博物館，紐約，2005年，圖版22、24、34及35。

1405-33年間，鄭和七下西洋，遍訪亞洲，遠赴東非，與各國互通有無，青花纏枝蓮紋梅瓶或被宦官鄭和（1371-1433年）用作外事獻禮。帖木兒使團自撒馬爾罕及赫拉特來朝覲見永樂，中國則派陳誠（1365-1457年）出使回訪帖木兒，此類梅瓶亦或經陸路來往兩國。中東兩大重要陶瓷收藏在伊朗及土耳其，其中各有梅瓶，伊朗所藏或因與華交好直接獲贈，土耳其所藏則經征戰、貿易輾轉取得。一例較大（41公分），藏伊朗阿德比爾寺，見 John Alexander Pope，《Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine》，華盛頓，1956年，圖版51，編號29.409；據插圖，此例或仍留阿德比爾寺，而寺中大批藏品已移至德黑蘭伊朗國家博物館，見三杉隆敏，《中近東之中國瓷器》，香港，1981年，卷3，頁353；另一尺寸相同例及一尺寸略大例錄康蕊君、約翰．艾爾斯，《Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul》，倫敦，1986年，卷2，編號623。

另有梅瓶若干，紋飾相同，尺寸相近，如大英博物館例，倫敦大維德爵士舊藏，錄於 Margaret Medley，《東洋陶瓷大觀》，卷6，東京，1982年，編號104；及出光美術館例，東京，錄入《出光美術館蔵品図録：中国陶磁》，東京，1987年，圖版630。回溯八十載，拍賣市場僅見三例同類梅瓶，其一，Lindsay F. Hay 上校雅蓄，售於倫敦蘇富比1946年6月25日，編號61；其二，收入《龍泉集芳：創業七十周年記念》，第一集，東京，1976年，編號740，頁246，先後售於紐約佳士得2002年9月20日，編號313，及紐約蘇富比2007年3月20日，編號750；其三，售於倫敦蘇富比1999年11月17日，編號744。