It is rare to find late Ming porcelain painted by a hand that is distinctive enough to identify on another piece. The exceptional draughtsmanship and fluidity of the brush work filled with washes of differing depths of colour link this to the ewer of the same form in the Lady Lever Art Gallery which Maura Rinaldi describes as “very artistically painted with an old man, perhaps a sage or Daoist figure, his robes flowing in the wind.” Our example is painted with court ladies amongst similar rockwork and cloud scrolls. Whilst numerous other examples of this form are known, few are painted with this level of refinement. [i]
Lady Lever Art Gallery
National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside (Inv. LLAG 25 H119)
This form is often described, perhaps incorrectly, as a kendi, a Malay word, for a long-necked drinking vessel popular in South-East Asia, which typically has a squat ‘mamiform’ spout. However, Maura Rinaldi points out that these vessels with long slender spouts do not appear in any Eastern collections and seem to have been made for the European market.[ii] Lunsingh Scheurleer illustrates four examples of this form (painted by other hands) with mounts added in Germany and The Netherlands including one mounted by the silversmith Georg Berger who was a member of the Guild in Erfurt from 1560 to 1577.[iii] An example with English mounts dateable to around 1600 is in the Liechtenstein Princely Collections.[iv]
Ewer with silver-gilt mounts by Georg Berger, late 17th century
Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin, Inv. Nr. 89,305
Christine Ketel has recently noted that in 1607 an order from the VOC (The Dutch East India Company) directors for Asian commodities was sent with the fleet of Admiral Pieter Willems Verhoef to Asia which included, for the first time, specific instructions for the purchase of porcelain. Along with large quantities of dishes and bowls more unusual pieces were specified such as ewers with a star-shaped mouth (Alderhande fraeye kannekens die monden geylyck een sterre).[v] An example was amongst the finds salvaged from the wreck of the San Diego, a Spanish merchant vessel, sunk by the Dutch on December 14, 1600 about a kilometre from Fortune Island in the Philippines.[vi] This shows that the Spanish had purchased such a rare item before the Dutch entered the Asian trade; perhaps this was one of the forms that the Dutch were familiar with because that had captured examples from the Spanish.
Condition:
Restoration to tips of the six leaves on the neck. Small chips to leaves.
References:
Harrison-Hall 2001
Jessica Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, (British Museum Press, 2001)
Ketel 2021
Christine Ketel, Dutch demand for porcelain: The maritime distribution of Chinese ceramics and the Dutch East India Company (VOC), first half of the 17th century, (Dissertation, Leiden 2021)
Marvellous Science 2025
Exhibition Catalogue, A Marvellous Science, Passion for Porcelain in Baroque Vienna, catalogue of the exhibition held at the Liechtenstein Garden Palace (30 January – 30 March 2025), edited by Stephan Koja with Claudia Lehner-Jobst and Iris Yvonne Wagner
Rinaldi 1989
Maura Rinaldi, Kraak Porcelain: A Moment in the History of Trade, (Bamboo Publishing, London, 1989)
San Diego 1996
Jean-Paul Desroches, Gabriel Casal, Franck Goddio, Treasures of the San Diego, (National Museum of the Philippines, 1996)
Scheurleer 1980
D.F. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Chinesisches und japanisches Porzellan in europäischen Fassungen, (Klinghardt & Biermann, 1980)
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[i] Another by the same hand is in the British Museum, (BM Franks. 1579), Harrison-Hall 2001, no. 11.15.
[ii] Rinaldi 1989, p. 178, plate 226.
[iii] Scheurleer 1980, figs. 36 – 39.
[iv] Marvellous Science 2025, Cat. no. 16 and frontispiece.
[v] Ketel 2021, p. 193 & 194, appendix 5 order dated 1607, list 8.
[vi] San Diego 1996, p. 338, Cat. no. 106.
Price: £22,500
