WINTER EXHIBITION 2008 - Roger Keverne

44
A pair of porcelain vases (meiping )
Ming dynasty, late 15th century
Height: 8G in, 21.3 cm
supported on broad, shallow feet, the
vessels have elegantly waisted sides rising
to globular shoulders and tapering mouths
with thickened lips. They are covered in
milk-white glaze.
Formerly in the Koger collection, and one
illustrated in Ayers, Chinese Ceramics:
The Koger Collection, no. 53, pp. 76–7.
A related pair of white meiping, with taller
necks and slightly more waisted bodies,
from the Hongwu period, excavated in
the 1960s from a tomb in Rugao county,
Jiangsu province, and now in the Nantong
City Museum, is illustrated in Zhang,
Complete Collection of Ceramic Art
Unearthed in China, Vol. 7, no. 180,
p. 180.
45
A pair of biscuit models of parrots
Kangxi period
Height: 6P in, 17.5 cm
seated on pierced and moulded rockwork
bases. The parrots have hooked beaks,
protruding eyes, neatly folded wings and
clawed, scaly feet; the heads and bodies
with incised details. The birds are decorated
on the biscuit with emerald-green, black
and yellow enamels.
For related figures of parrots, see Ayers,
The Chinese Porcelain Collection of Marie
Vergottis, nos. 70–2, pp. 94–5; du Boulay,
Christie’s Pictorial History of Chinese
Ceramics, figs. 2–4, p. 299; Hobson,
The Eumorfopoulos Collection, Vol. V,
no. E182, pl. XXXIV; Sargent, The Copeland
Collection: Chinese and Japanese Ceramic
Figures, no. 38, pp. 92–3; and Setterwall,
Fogelmarck and Gyllensvärd, The Chinese
Pavilion at Drottningholm, p. 163, in the
Yellow Room and originally in the collection
of Queen Hedvig Eleonora of Sweden
(1636–1715).