A finely painted blue and white 'Li Bai' jar and cover, Ming dynasty, Chongzhen period | 明崇禎　青花「李白醉草嚇蠻書」蓮子蓋罐

An English private collection, circa 1970.

Folklore in Ming and Qing Porcelain, Sun Museum, Hong Kong, 2019, pp. 14-17.

At the twilight of the Ming dynasty, as the empire teetered under Manchu threat, this transitional period is often remembered primarily as a time of decline, and its wares long overlooked for their non‑imperial origin. Ironically, works of exceptional quality such as this jar emerged precisely from that very age of perceived decay, an era which, amid turmoil, gave rise to some of the most original artistic achievements. With the court no longer able to sustain imperial kiln operations, the most skilled potters and painters, once serving a singular emperor‑dictated taste, pivoted to new patrons in a more diverse and competitive market. Responding to the preferences of a cultivated and affluent clientele, they redefined porcelain through fresh designs and technical finesse, resulting in some of the most stylistically innovative wares of the 17th century.

Created in private kilns at Jingdezhen, this jar was made for a new audience: the discerning literati and wealthy merchants of the fertile Jiangnan region, who, acutely aware of the empire’s crumbling under rising Manchu power, nonetheless clung to their cultivated way of life. Its newly fashionable narrative scenes were far more than mere decoration. They conveyed veiled dissent and critique of the collapsing political and moral order, instantly legible to Ming loyalists steeped in classical learning. Such designs often drew on woodblock‑printed illustrations from a wide variety of popular literary works from different historical periods, rich in moral and political resonance for late‑Ming viewers, and the present jar takes its scene from the widely read Ming‑dynasty vernacular collection Stories to Caution the World.

The jar depicts the celebrated episode in which Li Bai, the loyal yet uncompromising Tang‑dynasty poet, is summoned by Emperor Xuanzong to read a “barbarian” war letter that only he can interpret. He composes a forceful reply that reasserts imperial dignity and humiliates the foreign ruler, while, at a court banquet, having the much‑reviled grand minister Yang Guozhong and the eunuch Gao Lishi, who once belittled him, wait upon him, holding his inkstone and removing his boots as he writes.

This was far more than a charming Tang anecdote; it offered a pointed allegory in which corruption is humbled by integrity and literary mastery, and Han Chinese cultural authority still triumphs over menacing frontier powers. The cover, meanwhile, depicts Sima Xiangru making his vow at Shengxian Bridge, a Western Han story of eventual vindication that echoed Ming loyalist sentiment.

Jars like this belong to a small group of “High Transitional” Jingdezhen ware, a term introduced by Sir Michael Butler (1927-2013), a pioneering collector and leading scholar of 17th‑century Jingdezhen porcelain, to designate what he regarded as the peak of late Ming Jingdezhen porcelain. They were likely made within a narrow ten‑year span, from 1634 to 1643 in the Chongzhen reign, as suggested by a small group of surviving dated examples.

These High Transitional works differ sharply from most porcelains of the period. Jingdezhen potters, adapting to new markets driven by wealthy domestic patrons and lucrative overseas demand, refined their materials and techniques. They improved local cobalt to achieve a richer, more saturated yet controllable blue suited to an increasingly painterly style. This produced the brilliant, velvety hue later described in the West as "violet‑in‑milk", enabling finer brushwork and more nuanced tonal gradations. Their novelty extended to both form and decoration. This graceful oval lidded jar was a radically new shape, its surface treated almost as if it were a sheet of paper or silk to be painted on, with incised anhua borders that recall the brocade mountings of a handscroll, while swirling clouds visually mark the beginning and end of the painted “scroll”. For further discussion of High Transitional wares and their defining characteristics, see Teresa Canepa, ‘Sir Michael Butler and the Rise of High Transitional Porcelain’, Journal of International Ceramic Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, 2025.

Compare also two similar lidded jars recognised as classic High Transitional style by Sir Michael Butler, both illustrated in Seventeenth Century Jingdezhen Porcelain from the Shanghai Museum and the Butler Collections. Beauty’s Enchantment, Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, 2005, cat. nos 13 and 14. One, in the Shanghai Museum and illustrated on the museum's website, is painted with a bogu (antiquities) motif, while the other, from the Butler family collection (inv. no. 1040), depicts the story of Li Ling and Su Wu of the Han dynasty, a subject similarly imbued with political overtones.

In the early 20th century, few collectors paid much heed to these non‑imperial wares, which were generally overshadowed by imperial porcelain. As Western collectors began to seek out and study them in depth, culminating in Sir Michael Butler’s definition of the High Transitional type, this prejudice was overturned. The present jar, once in an English private collection in the 1970s, forms part of that history of rediscovery, embodying both the late Ming’s last brilliant phase of porcelain production and its modern reappraisal as a high point of porcelain art.

來源

英國私人收藏，約1970年

展覽

《文武傳奇：明清瓷上丹青》，一新美術館，香港，2019年，頁14-17

明朝垂暮之年，帝國在滿族威脅下岌岌可危。這段過渡期常被主要記作衰敗的年代，而其器物因非出自官窰場而遭忽視。諷刺的是，如此罐般工藝卓絕的作品，恰恰誕生於這個被視為頹敗的時期，正是在動盪中，一些最具獨創性的藝術成就得以湧現。隨著朝廷無力維繫御窰廠運作，曾服務於帝王審美的最傑出陶工與畫師，轉而面向更多元、競爭更激烈的市場尋找新主顧。為迎合文人雅士與富人權貴的品味，他們以煥然一新的設計與精湛技藝重新定義了瓷器，造就了十七世紀一批風格上最具創新性的陶瓷傑作。

此罐出自景德鎮民窰，專為新興的受眾而製：即江南富庶地區眼光獨到的文人雅士與富豪。他們雖敏銳察覺到帝國在滿洲勢力崛起下的傾頹，卻依然堅守著風雅的生活方式。罐身上新興流行的敘事場景遠不止於裝飾，它們傳遞著對崩解中的政治與道德秩序隱晦的不滿與批判，這種隱喻對於熟諳典籍的明朝遺民而言一目了然。此類設計常取材於不同歷史時期各類通俗文學作品中的木刻版畫插圖，圖像對晚明觀者而言蘊含著豐富的道德與政治共鳴。本罐的場景正取自廣為流傳的明代話本集《警世通言》。

罐腹通景描繪唐代忠貞不阿詩人「李白醉草嚇蠻書」經典故事：唐玄宗召其入宮解讀一封唯他能辨的「蠻族」戰書。李白揮毫撰寫檄文，宣示帝國威嚴，令外族君主受辱。宮廷宴席間，他更令曾輕視自己的權臣楊國忠與宦官高力士侍奉左右，一人捧硯，一人脫靴，成就千古逸事。然這遠非一則風雅的唐代軼事，它構成了一則犀利的寓言：腐化權貴終被才學與風骨折服，而漢文化正統仍能威懾四方邊患。罐蓋之上所繪西漢司馬相如題升仙橋明志的典故，這則關於終得昭雪的故事，正與明代遺民的心境遙相呼應。

此類瓷罐屬於一小批「轉變高峰期」景德鎮瓷器。這一術語由巴特勒爵士（Sir Michael Butler，1927-2013年）提出，他是十七世紀景德鎮瓷器的開創性收藏家與權威學者，用以指其心目中晚明景德鎮瓷器的巔峰之作。根據現存少數帶有紀年的實物推斷，此類瓷器很可能製作於明朝最後的短暫十年間，即約1634至1643年間。

「轉變高峰期」瓷器與當時大多數瓷器截然不同。景德鎮的窰工為適應由國內富裕階層及海外旺盛需求驅動的新市場，在材料與技藝上精益求精。他們改良本地鈷料，從而獲得一種更濃郁飽滿、同時又易於掌控的青花發色，以適應日益繪畫性的風格。這造就了後來在西方被形容為「紫蘊於乳」的明亮柔潤之色，使得筆觸更為精細，色調層次也愈發微妙。其創新之處還延伸至器型與裝飾。如本罐器形優雅豐滿且帶蓋，便是一種全新的造型。工匠以瓷器為畫箋，在光潔器身之上運筆成圖，以暗花邊飾模擬手卷的錦緞裝裱，而流轉的雲紋則在視覺上標記了這幅「畫卷」的起首與收尾。關於「轉變高峰期」瓷器及其界定特徵的進一步探討，參見甘淑美，〈Sir Michael Butler and the Rise of High Transitional Porcelain〉［巴特勒爵士與轉變高峰期瓷器的興起］，《Journal of International Ceramic Studies》［國際陶瓷研究期刊］，卷1，第1期，2025年。

另可比較兩件類似的帶蓋罐，被巴特勒爵士認定為經典的轉變高峰期風格，均收錄於《上海博物館與英國巴特勒家族所藏十七世紀景德鎮瓷器》，上海博物館，上海，2005年，編號13及14。其中一件藏於上海博物館（見官網），繪博古紋樣；另一件出自巴特勒家族收藏（收藏編號1040），描繪漢代李陵與蘇武的故事，這一題材同樣蘊含著豐富的政治隱喻。