A RARE BLUE AND WHITE 'DESCENDING GEESE' OVOID JAR AND COVER

Chongzhen

Footnotes

明崇禎 青花寳鴨穿蓮紋蓋罐

Provenance: a Leipzig private collection, purchased in 1990, by repute
Sotheby's London, 15 May 2007, lot 503

來源：萊比錫私人收藏，於1990年入藏（擬）
蘇富比倫敦，2007年5月15日，拍品503號

Lotus were beloved by the literati since the Neo-Confucian scholar Zhou Dunyi (1017-1073) wrote his essay 'On Loving Lotus' (Ai lian shuo). In his essay, Zhou likened the scholar-gentleman to the lotus who 'remains pure despite growing from the mud' ('出淤泥而不染'). In the context of venal late Ming Court politics of the Chongzhen era when the present lot was made, the pure lotus that rises from the mud would have resonated strongly with scholar-officials and encapsulated a hopeful attitude.

The depiction of the geese are also particularly interesting. Geese descending is a theme which has strong poetic associations with Autumn and has been extolled by both painters and musicians alike in the well-known song for the guqin 'Wild Geese Descending on the Sandbank' (平沙落雁). This theme attained renown within Chinese literary and artistic circles during the Song period and continued from then on. See also for example, a painting of geese descending by Bian Shoumin (1683-1752), in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (acc.no.90.513). the painting 'Wild Geese and Hibiscus' by Bian Wenjin (ca.1356-1428), in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated by Hou-mei Sung, Decoded Messages: The Symbolic Language of Chinese Animal Painting, New Haven, 2009, p.68. The painting (though with five birds) shows wild geese on a river shore in the four aspects of flying, calling, sleeping and eating, a traditional grouping. Geese over time had many different meanings from orderliness in flight, to their ability to come and go as they pleased, to their apparent busyness and friendship. During the Yuan dynasty, wild geese appear to have symbolised the self-enforced leisure and freedom of retired Han Chinese scholars, indignant at their treatment under Mongolian rule. It could be perhaps, that Han Chinese scholars felt the same with impending foreign Manchu rule. It is likely that the present's lot design was based on the woodblock printed book Tuhui zongyi (圖繪宗彝), juan 8, which also shows geese descending, and was published in 1607.

The cover depicts a rabbit gazing at the moon. This is a reference to the Goddess of the Moon's companion, the moon rabbit, sometimes also known as the Jade rabbit, who constantly pounds herbs into an elixir of longevity for Chang'e. In time, the rabbit became synonymous with the moon.

Compare with a similar blue and white ovoid jar, but without cover, Jiajing six-character mark but Shunzhi, with very similar decoration, illustrated by T.Canepa and K.Butler, Leaping The Dragon Gate: The Sir Michael Butler Collection of Seventeenth-Century Chinese Porcelain, London, 2021, p.309, no.III3.60. See also a related blue and white ovoid jar and cover, Chongzhen, but decorated with flowers and antiques, illustrated in Seventeenth Century Jingdezhen Porcelain from the Shanghai Museum and the Butler Collections: Beauty's Enchantment, Shanghai, 2005, pp.90-91, no.13.

See a related blue and white ovoid jar and cover, circa 1640-1650, similarly decorated with a lotus pond, which was sold at Christie's New York, An Era of Inspiration: 17th Century Chinese Porcelains from the Collection of Julia and John Curtis, 16 March 2015, lot 3513.