A very large blue and white 'boys' fish bowl, Mark and period of Jiajing | 明嘉靖 青花嬰戲圖大缸 《大明嘉靖年製》款

Hirano Kotoken, Tokyo, September 1997.

S. Marchant & Son, London.

Collection of Bruce Dayton and Ruth Stricker Dayton.

Sotheby’s New York, 21st September 2021, lot 87.

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Hirano Kotoken，東京，1997年9月

馬錢特，倫敦

Bruce (1918-2015) 及Ruth Stricker (1935-2020)代頓伉儷收藏

紐約蘇富比，2021年9月21日，編號87

Two Hundred Years of Chinese Porcelain 1522-1722, Marchant, London, 1998, cat. no.6, pp.16-17.

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《 Two Hundred Years of Chinese Porcelain 1522-1722》，馬錢特，倫敦，1998年，編號6，頁16-17

The present fishbowl is impressive for its large size and animated design of playful boys painted in striking underglaze blue. Vessels of these dimensions were especially difficult to produce, as explained by R.L. Hobson in The Wares of the Ming Dynasty, London, 1923, pp 19 and 110, where he notes that such vessels needed up to nine days of firing and that Imperial potters were driven to despair, since many pieces consistently failed to come out perfectly year after year. 

A similar vessel is illustrated in Enlightening Elegance: Imperial Porcelain of the mid to late Ming, the Huaihaitang Collection, Hong Kong, 2013, pl. 57, with the boys in a more lush setting. Two examples in the Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, one painted with dragons and the other with Buddhist lions, are published in Lu Minghua, Shanghai bowuguan cangpin yanjiu daxi: Mingdai guanyao ciqi [Ming imperial porcelain], Shanghai, 2007, pls 3-84 and 3-85. A Jiajing mark and period fishbowl with a continuous scene of a lotus pond was sold at Christie's London, 10th July 2006, lot 118. 

此件巨型青花缸，通體繪以生動嬰戲圖，構圖繁密、筆意靈動，尤為引人注目。其器形碩大，製作難度極高，為明代景德鎮御窯燒造技藝之集大成者。據 R.L. Hobson 於《The Wares of the Ming Dynasty》，倫敦，1923年，頁19及110頁所述，此類大型器物需經長達九日之燒製，過程艱鉅，成品率極低，御窯工匠年年嘗試，往往難得完美之作，堪稱技藝與毅力之挑戰。

可參考一例類似題材之青花魚缸，藏於《機暇明道: 懷海堂藏明代中晚期官窰瓷器》，香港，2013年，圖版57，所繪嬰戲場景園林秀麗。另見上海博物館所藏兩件大型青花缸，一飾雲龍紋，一飾佛獅紋，分別著錄於陸明華編，《上海博物館藏品研究大系·明代官窯瓷器》，上海，2007年，圖版3-84與3-85。此外，另可比一例嘉靖款蓮池紋青花魚缸，曾售於倫敦佳士得，2006年7月10日，編號118。