A blue and white Chinese export 'Royal Family Arms of Spain' pilgrim flask, Ming dynasty, Wanli period | 明萬曆 青花西班牙皇室紋章圖長頸扁瓶

A Japanese private collection.

來源：

日本私人收藏

The present example is from a well-known and extensively researched group of flasks bearing the arms of Castile and Léon quartered by a cross in the center. The reverse of the vases are either decorated with a scholar and attendant, or floral decorations. However the provenance of the present lot is particularly interesting, as it appears to be one of the very few examples formerly in a Japanese collection that appeared on the market in the last four decades. While most scholarship on vases of this type is centered on European influences, a very small select group of these vases appear in Japan, with examples found in the Tokyo National Museum, Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art, Kumamoto, Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo and Tama Art University, Tokyo. The latter two examples were illustrated and discussed in Nishida Hiroko, ‘Meiji no Seihou Yushutsu (Ming Export Porcelain for the West 明磁の西方輸出)’, Sekai Toji Zenshu: Mei [Ceramic Art of the World: Ming Dynasty], vol. 14, Tokyo, 1976, pp 300-301, figs 196-198.

Compare two nearly identical pilgrim flasks, one formerly in the Wolf Family Collection, sold in our New York rooms, 19th April 2023, lot 45. The other sold at Christie's London, November 2, 1987, lot 385, entered the collection of the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, and is illustrated in William R. Sargent, Treasures of Chinese Export Ceramics from the Peabody Essex Museum, Concord, 2012, cat. no. 185, pp. 348-351.