.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The present vase is a very unusual shape in the repertoire of vessels created during the Wanli period. More common forms produced include double-gourd vases, bottle vases including versions with garlic-form mouths, flasks of square section, elephant and frog-form kendis, as well as large-scale gu-form vases.
The technique of piercing the walls of a vessel to create a delicate openwork design was known by the Chinese as ling long or 'delicate openwork’, and is rare to find on a vase from this time period. These openwork designs would have been cut by hand when the clay was 'leather hard'. Both the cutting and subsequent firing would have required great skill. During this Wanli period this technique can be found on fully reticulated bowls, such as those illustrated by M. Medley in Illustrated Catalogue of Underglaze Blue and Copper Red Decorated Porcelains in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, 1976, plate XI, nos. B620 and B623, listed p. 57, and Chen Runmin, Selected Chinese Ceramics from the Palace Museum (Volume 1): Blue and White Ceramics in Shunzhi and Kangxi Periods (Qing Shunzhi Kangxi chao qing hua ci), Beijing, 2005, p. 203, no. 124. The workmanship on the present vase is slightly more involved, as the vase has an inner wall, and the openwork only goes through the outer wall.