An important and exceedingly rare blue and white palace bowl, Mark and period of Chenghua | 明成化　青花萱草紋宮盌　《大明成化年製》款

Collection of Yamamoto Hatsujiro (1887-1951), acquired prior to 1943.

Mayuyama & Co., Ltd, Tokyo.

A Japanese private collection.

Kochukyo Co., Ltd, Tokyo.

Chugoku toji Gen Ming meihinten [Masterpieces of Chinese Ceramics from the Yuan and Ming Dynasties], Ceramic Society of Japan, Nihonbashi Takashimaya, Tokyo, 1956, no. 110.

Chinese Ceramics. A Loan Exhibition of Selected Masterpieces, Hiroshima Fukuya, Hiroshima, 1961, cat. no. 63.

Chinese Arts of the Ming and Ch'ing Periods, Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, 1963, cat. no. 299.

Chugoku bijutsu 5000nen ten [Exhibition of 5000 Years of Chinese Art], Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, Osaka, 1966, cat. no. 4-73.

Takushin Kushi, Chugoku Minsho toji Zukan [Illustrated Catalogue of Early Ming Dynasty Porcelains of China], Tokyo, 1943, pl. 74.

Fujio Koyama et al., eds, Sekai toji zenshu [Ceramic Art of the World], vol. 11: Yuan and Ming dynasties, Tokyo, 1955, pl. 87 and fig. 108.

Fujio Koyama, ed., Sekai Bijutsu Zenshu [Complete Series of Fine Arts of the World], vol. 17: China. Ming, Qing, Tokyo, 1966, pl. 83.

Takushin Kushi, Misho Toji Zukan [Illustrated Catalogue of Early Ming Dynasty Porcelains], Tokyo, 1968, pl.79.

Ryoichi Fujioka, Toji Taikei [Complete Series of Ceramics], vol. 42: Ming dynasty blue and white porcelain, Tokyo, 1975, pls 70 and 71.

Mayuyama, Seventy Years, vol. 1, Mayuyama & Co., Ltd, Tokyo, 1976, pl. 794.

Osaka Municipal Art Museum ed., Min Shin no Bijutsu [Art of the Ming and Qing Dynasties], Tokyo, 1982, pl. 9.

Kobayashi Tadashi, ed., Masterpieces of the Okada Museum of Art, vol. 1, Tokyo, 2013, no. 25.

A delight in the hand, glowing with rich cobalt blue against a brilliant porcelain white, the present bowl is one of the finest and most coveted porcelain designs ever produced in Chinese history. 

Known today as 'palace bowls' for their imperial history, bowls of this form are typified by their fine proportions and naive underglaze blue designs of flowers or fruits. Although bowls with flower scroll decoration were frequently produced in the Yongle (1403–1424) and Xuande periods (1426–1435), those of the Chenghua reign (1465–1487) are unique in the deliberate irregularity introduced to a seemingly regular pattern. The present gardenia design, for example, appears to have first developed during the Xuande period, when it was produced in the typical ‘heaped and piled’ style of the early fifteenth century, but with none of the spontaneity of the present example. Compare one such bowl of Xuande mark and period excavated from Xigucheng, Anci county in 1957, illustrated in Hebei sheng chutu wenwu xuanji [Cultural relics excavated in Hebei], Beijing, 1980, pl. 423. While on first glance, the present bowl may also appear to be formulaic with blooms alternating between leaves, on closer inspection one discovers an unpredictable and vibrant rhythm to the design, with blooms varying in size and leaves swirling into play as if tossed by the wind. Rather than undulating in a predictable manner, the stems seem to rise and fall naturally as if they had grown on the bowl and deliberately break up any symmetry. It is this slight deviation from the orderly arrangement – a daring and unique concept for imperial works of art, where any individual touch was generally shunned and machine-like precision and perfection were required – that makes this and other palace bowl designs vibrate, as if pervaded with some quiet motion. In this respect, Chenghua palace bowls like the present example are quite unlike any earlier or later imperial designs.

The porcelain stone and glaze used for Chenghua imperial porcelains are also arguably the finest ever achieved at Jingdezhen. The sensual pleasure of the touch of a Chenghua porcelain vessel is unmatched by porcelains of any other period, said to be ‘equally enjoyed with one’s eyes closed,’ with the extraordinary ‘softness’ of the hard material visible even from photographs. The clear glaze and cobalt pigment are similarly silky and soft in their application. Unlike the dark cobalt blues imported from the Middle East that tend to misfire with dramatic ‘heaps and piles,’ potters of the Chenghua kilns turned to domestic cobalt sources which – alone or in combination with imported pigments – result in washy, serene results unprecedented in the early Ming.

With such innovation and attention to detail at the imperial kilns, it is not surprising that Chenghua porcelain is extremely rare – if not the rarest imperial porcelain ever produced. In his assessment of porcelain fragments recovered from the Ming imperial kiln site, Liu Xinyuan notes that Chenghua sherds represent less than half of those unearthed from the Xuande stratum (1426-35), although the latter period was so much shorter (Liu Xinyuan 'Reconstructing Chenghua Porcelain from Historical Records', The Emperor's Broken China: Reconstructing Chenghua Porcelain, Sotheby's, London, 1995, p. 11). Indeed, the scarcity of sherds at Jingdezhen is mirrored by the rarity of surviving examples, of which the vast majority remain preserved in the Palace Museum, Taipei. Of the remaining examples almost all are now in museum collections with only two dozen or so Chenghua pieces of any type recorded in private hands.

In his seminal catalogue raisonné of Chenghua porcelain, Julian Thompson identifies the present bowl as one of just five surviving examples of its design (B27), the other four examples respectively preserved in: the Palace Museum, Taipei (accession no. gu ci 009989), included in The Special Exhibition of Ch’enghua Porcelain Ware, Palace Museum, Taipei, cat. no. 36; the British Museum, London (formerly in the Oppenheim Collection, accession no. 1947,0712.182), illustrated in Jessica Harrison-Hall, Catalogue of Late Yuan and Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, pl. 6:6; in the Tianminlou Collection of Ko Shih Chao (1911–1992); and another apparently unpublished; see The Emperor's Broken China. op. cit.,, pp 116-29.

Another closely related design, featuring gardenia scrolls around the exterior and ‘four seasons’ flower scroll within, is identified by Thompson as Type B26, distinguished by a flatter wash applied to the flowers. Similarly, only five examples of this latter design are now attested: in the Palace Museum, Taipei (accession no. gu ci 008407), in the Special Exhibition, op. cit., cat. no. 37; from the Percival David Foundation, now in the British Museum, London (accession no. PDF,A.647), in Rosemary Scott and Stacey Pierson, Flawless Porcelains: Imperial Ceramics from the Reign of the Chenghua Emperor, London, 1995, pl. 2; in the Idemitsu Museum of Art, Tokyo, sold from the Alfred Clark Collection in these rooms, 20th May 1987, lot 421; from the Brankston, Eumorfopoulos and Sedgwick Collections, sold three times in our rooms, most recently in these rooms, 27th April 1999, lot 411; and preserved in a private Japanese collection, illustrated in Sekai tōji zenshū / Ceramic Art of the World, vol.14: Min [Ming], Tokyo, 1976, pls 47 and 48, formerly in the collections of Major L. F. Hay, Lionel Edwards and L. H. Goris, sold four times in our London rooms, most recently, 30th June 1964, lot 48.

Chenghua palace bowls continued to be admired long after the Emperor’s death and remained highly treasured throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties. Ts'ai Ho-pi relates many anecdotes recorded in the historical literature attesting to the value and esteem of Chenghua wares in later periods (Ts'ai Ho-pi, 'Chenghua Porcelain in Historical Context', The Emperor's broken china, op. cit., pp 16-20), with the majority of pieces remaining in the Qing Court Collection, preserved in purpose-made lacquer cabinets from Japan. Indeed, the present design appears to have been a favourite of the High Qing emperors, and particularly the Yongzheng Emperor (r. 1723-1735), who had the design reproduced on bowls bearing his six-character mark. Compare one such bowl from the collection of Mr and Mrs Alfred Clark, now in the British Museum, London (accession no. 1973,0124.2), illustrated alongside their aforementioned Chenghua original in Sir Harry Garner, Oriental Blue and White, London, 1973, pl. 36; a Kangxi mark and period variation with a lotus to the interior, included in the Inaugural Exhibition, Museum of East Asian Art, vol. I, Bath, 1993, cat. no. 193; and a Chenghua-marked eighteenth-century example from the Eumorfopoulos Collection, most recently sold in our Paris rooms, 12th June 2025, lot 150.

來源

山本發次郎（1887-1951)年）收藏，1943年前入藏

繭山龍泉堂，東京

日本私人收藏

壺中居，東京

展覽

《中國陶磁元明名品展》，日本陶磁協會，日本橋高島屋，東京， 1956年，編號110

《中国名陶展》，日本經濟新聞社，廣島福屋，廣島，1961年，編號63

《中国明清展目錄》，東京國立博物館，東京，1963年，編號299

《中国美術5000年展》，大阪市立美術館，大阪，1966年，編號4-73.

出版

久志卓真，《中國明初陶磁圖鑑》，東京，1943年，圖版74

小山冨士夫等編，《世界陶磁全集》，卷11：元明篇，東京，1955年，圖版87及圖108

小山冨士夫編，《世界美術全集》，卷17：中國—明清，東京，1966年，圖版83

久志卓真，《明初陶磁圖鑑》，東京，1968年，圖版79

藤岡了一，《陶磁大系》，卷42：明の染付，東京，1975年，圖版70及71

《龍泉集芳》，卷1，繭山龍泉堂，東京，1976年，圖版794

大阪市立美術館編，《明清の美術》，東京，1982年，圖版9

小林忠編，《岡田美術館名品撰》，卷1，東京，2013年，編號25

此盌盈手可握，瑩白瓷胎映襯明麗鈷藍，堪稱中國陶瓷史上至善盡美、最令人夢寐以求的瓷器之一。

此類器形因御窰淵源，今通稱為「宮盌」，其比例精巧，釉下青花繪就花卉或瓜果紋飾，質樸天真。雖纏枝花卉紋飾常見於永樂（1403–1424）與宣德（1426–1435）時期，然成化窰器（1465–1487）之獨特，在於其於看似規整的圖案中刻意融入不規則性。例如本品所飾萱草紋，或有識譯作梔子花者，似肇始於宣德年間，採用典型的十五世紀初「凝聚斑」技法繪製，而宣德作品卻全無本品所見之自然靈動。可比較一例宣德宮盌，於1957年自河北省安次縣西固城遺址出土，圖見《河北省出土文物選集》，北京，1980年，圖版423。初觀此盌，紋飾似循規蹈矩，花卉與枝葉交替排列；然細察之下，可見構圖蘊含難以預測的盎然韻律，花蕾大小錯落，葉片翻捲如風拂，枝莖起伏宛若自然生長於盌壁，刻意打破對稱格局。正是此種對規整佈局的微妙偏離，於御製藝術品中堪稱大膽獨創之舉（御窰製作通常嚴禁個人風格，務求精準如機械），令本品及其他宮盌設計彷彿蘊含某種靜謐動感，因而生機勃發。就此而言，如本品之成化宮盌，與前朝後世之御窰設計迥然相異。

成化御瓷所用瓷石與釉料，或可謂景德鎮歷來之巔峰。成化瓷器的觸感之悅，為任何其他時期所不及，素有「閉目撫之，蕩人心魄」之譽，即便透過影像，亦能窺見硬質材質所呈現之非凡「柔潤感」。透明釉與鈷料之運用，同樣呈現絲質般柔滑效果。有別於中東進口鈷料所呈深藍且易現「凝聚斑」之特徵，成化窰工轉而採用本土青料，或單獨使用，或與進口顏料調和，從而呈現出明初前所未見之清雅柔潤效果。

如此講究創新與細節，成化瓷器之稀珍便不足為奇，若稱其為史上最罕見之御瓷亦不為過。劉新園在檢視明代御窰遺址出土瓷片時指出，成化時期堆積層出土瓷片數量，尚不及宣德堆積層一半，見劉新園，《從文獻記載重建成化瓷器》，載於《The Emperor's Broken China, Reconstructing Chenghua Porcelain》，倫敦蘇富比，1995年，頁11。景德鎮遺址瓷片之稀少，正與傳世品之珍罕相互映照，其中絕大多數現存於台北故宮博物院。其餘傳世品幾乎皆納入博物館典藏，私人收藏中可見之成化瓷器，總計僅二十餘件。

朱湯生在他的成化瓷器研究圖錄中認為本品是裝飾該類紋飾者僅存五例之一（B27），其餘四例分別庋藏於：台北故宮博物院（館藏編號 故瓷009989），載於《成化瓷器特展》，台北故宮博物院，圖錄編號36；倫敦大英博物館（原屬奧本海默收藏，館藏編號 1947,0712.182），圖見霍吉淑，《Catalogue of Late Yuan and Ming Ceramics in the British Museum》，倫敦，2001年，圖版6:6；天民樓葛士翹（1911–1992）收藏；及另一未發表之例；參見《The Emperor's Broken China, Reconstructing Chenghua Porcelain》，頁116-129。

可比較另一種相關之設計，外壁飾梔子纏枝紋，盌內繪四季花卉，被朱湯生歸類為B26型，其特徵在於花卉部分採用較為平塗之技法。同樣，此類設計目前僅見五例：台北故宮博物院（館藏編號故瓷008407），載於《成化瓷器特展》，同前引，圖錄編號37；原屬倫敦大英博物館大維德基金會（館藏編號 PDF,A.647），載於羅森、畢宗陶，《Flawless Porcelains: Imperial Ceramics from the Reign of the Chenghua Emperor》，倫敦，1995年，圖版2；東京出光美術館藏，原屬阿爾弗雷德·克拉克收藏，1987年5月20日售於倫敦蘇富比，編號421；原屬布蘭克斯頓、尤莫福波羅斯及塞奇威克收藏，三度售於倫敦蘇富比，最近一次為1999年4月27日，編號411；及一件存於日本私人收藏之例，圖見《世界陶瓷全集》，卷14：明，東京，1976年，圖版47及48；原屬海伊少校、萊昂內爾·愛德華茲及葛利歐斯收藏，四度售於倫敦蘇富比，最近一次為1964年6月30日，編號48。

成化宮盌之鑑賞，自該朝以降歷久不衰，備受明清兩代珍視。蔡和璧引據大量史料文獻，印證後世對成化瓷器之珍視與推崇，並指出大多數成化瓷器仍留存於清宮舊藏，並以特製日本漆盒儲藏，見蔡和璧，《成化瓷器的歷史背景》，《The Emperor's Broken China, Reconstructing Chenghua Porcelain》，頁16-20。的確，此紋飾深得盛清帝王鍾愛，尤以雍正帝（1723–1735）為著，他甚至命窰工於署六字款之盌上仿製此式。可比較一例原屬阿爾弗雷德·克拉克伉儷收藏，現藏倫敦大英博物館（館藏編號 1973,0124.2），圖見與前述成化原器並列刊載於蓋爾爵士，《Oriental Blue and White》，倫敦，1974年，圖版36；一件康熙款及該時期之變體，盌內飾蓮紋，載於《Inaugural Exhibition》，卷1，巴斯，1993年，圖錄編號193；及一件十八世紀成化款仿品，原屬尤莫福波羅斯收藏，最近一次售於巴黎蘇富比，2025年6月12日，編號150。