A BLUE AND WHITE 'DRAGON' STEM BOWL YUAN DYNASTY | 元 青花龍戲珠紋高足盌

Sotheby's Hong Kong, 5th April 2017, lot 3673.

香港蘇富比2017年4月5日，編號3673

Stem bowls with such freely executed sketches of vigorous dragons chasing 'flaming pearls' appear to have been in use throughout China during the Yuan dynasty, although extant examples are rare. Similar stem bowls, decorated both with dragons and with phoenix, were excavated from the Yuan city site at Jininglu in Inner Mongolia, see Chen Yongzhi, ed., Nei Menggu Jininglu gu cheng yizhi chutu ciqi/Porcelain Unearthed from Jininglu Ancient City Site in Inner Mongolia, Beijing, 2004, pl. 46, for a dragon stem cup, pls 42-4, for three stem bowls with phoenix, and p. 12, for several pieces packed together in a jar, as found on site. The same dragon stem bowl was included in the exhibition Yuan qinghua/Blue and White of the Yuan, Capital Museum, Beijing, 2009, cat. no. 107, together with a related piece excavated from a Yuan hoard in Anhui, cat. no. 106. Another example, excavated from the tomb of the eminent Ming official Wang Xingzu, datable to the fourth year of Hongwu (1371), is in the Nanjing Museum, published in Wang Qingzheng, Underglaze Blue and Red, Hong Kong, 1993, pl. 33. A stem bowl in the British Museum, London is published in Jessica Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, no. 1: 24; and two similar stem bowls from the collections of Mrs. O. Harriman and Lord Cunliffe, respectively, were included in the exhibition Chinese Blue and White Porcelain: 14th to 19th Centuries, The Oriental Ceramic Society at The Arts Council Gallery, London, 1953-4, cat. nos 11 and 12. 

高足盃形，繪遊龍爭珠，龍體雄健，畫意率真，見於蒙元一代。類例罕見，相若瓷盃，有飾龍或鳳紋者，出土於內蒙古元代集寧路古城遺址，參考一龍紋高足盃，見陳永志編，《內蒙古集寧路古城遺址出土瓷器》，北京，2004年，圖版46，或三件鳳紋高足盃，圖版42-4，亦有見數盃出土時整齊置於一甕罐內，參見頁12。前述之龍紋高足盃後入展於2009年北京首都博物館之《元青花》展覽，編號107，同展另一相類作例，則出土於安徽一處元代窖藏，見編號106。明洪武四年（1371年）汪興祖墓出土物，也可資比對，該器現藏南京博物院，載於汪慶正，《青花釉裏紅》，香港，1993年，圖版33。 大英博物館另藏一例，錄於霍吉淑，《Ming Ceramics in the British Museum》，倫敦，2001年，編號1:24。還有兩件相若器例，分別屬 O. Harriman 夫人及 Cunliffe 勛爵典藏，曾於1953-4年東方陶瓷學會假倫敦 The Arts Council Gallery 舉行之《Chinese Blue and White Porcelain: 14th to 19th Centuries》特展中展出，編號11及12。