A RARE CLOISONNE ENAMEL 'PHOENIX' EWER AND A COVER, MING DYNASTY, JIAJING PERIOD

The quan or 'spring waters' mark on the base of the present lot suggests that the vessel was used for tea. Since at least the Tang dynasty, scholars discussed and recorded the importance of pure spring waters in brewing tea. In the Chajing [The Classic of Tea], Lu Yu (733-804), considered the 'sage of tea', ranked his preferred natural springs. The works of cultivated gentlemen of the Ming dynasty also expound the virtues of superior spring water. Wen Zhengming (1470-1559) painted numerous paintings of scholars enjoying tea, often by a stream, and the text Zhang Wu Zhi [Treatise on Superfluous Things] written between 1620 and 1627 by his great-grandson Wen Zhenheng (1585-1645), also dedicates a large portion of the text to the proper brewing of teas with pure spring waters.

Notable for its bold and brilliantly enameled design of phoenix flying among peonies, ewers of this form are rare and no other closely related example appears to have been published. Compare a ewer of related form, but decorated with Buddhist lions, and with a tall cover, from the T.B. Kitson Collection, included in the exhibition Chinese Cloisonné. The Pierre Uldry Collection, Asia Society Galleries, New York, 1989, cat. no. 98, and sold twice in our London rooms, 21st February 1961, lot 272, and 11th July 1972, lot 27; another sold at Christie’s New York, 1st December 1983, lot 773; and a third with lotus scrolls included in the exhibition Chinese Cloisonné, op. cit., cat. no. 99. See also a ewer of ovoid form decorated with makara dragons above waves, and with the spout and handle simulating bamboo, from the collection of David David-Weill, in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, included in the exhibition Cloisonné: Chinese Enamels from the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties, Bard Graduate Center, New York, 2011, cat. no. 36; and another but with a geometric handle, from the T.B. Kitson Collection, sold in our London rooms, 30th May 1961, lot 408.