A fine and rare blue and white lobed 'fruit and flower' bowl, Mark and period of Xuande | 明宣德 青花折枝花果紋葵式盌 《大明宣德年製》款

Collection of H.R.N. Norton (d. 1961-62).

Sotheby's London, 5th November 1963, lot 166 (£2,000).

Bluett & Sons Ltd, London, 1963 (£2,000).

Collection of Roger Pilkington (1928-69), from 1963 (£2,000).

Sotheby's Hong Kong, 6th April 2016, lot 20.

諾頓（1961-62年卒）收藏

倫敦蘇富比1963年11月5日，編號166（英鎊2,000）

Bluett & Sons Ltd，倫敦，1963年（英鎊2,000）

羅傑琵金頓（1928-69年）收藏，自1963年始（英鎊2,000）

香港蘇富比2016年4月6日，編號20

Conical bowls of this fruit-and-flower design can be counted among the most successful blue-and-white bowl patterns of the early Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and belong to the classic repertoire of the Xuande (1426-35) imperial kilns. They reflect the newly awoken interest of the Chinese court in fine blue-and-white porcelains. Whereas Yongle (1403-24) blue-and-white is still characterised by many large items created for export, in the Xuande reign the products of the imperial workshops were geared for the imperial house both in size and in taste, exquisitely finished and inscribed with the imperial reign mark.

The conical shape of this bowl with its six delicate rim lobes evokes memories of Song dynasty (960-1279) monochrome white prototypes, as made by the Jingdezhen kilns before they had become imperial manufactories. The diverse fruit and flower sprays were in the Yongle reign often used on other shapes. The present design appears to be specific to the Xuande period, although one apparently unmarked bowl of this design was included in the exhibition Mingdai chunian ciqi tezhan mulu/Catalogue of a Special Exhibition of Early Ming Period Porcelain, Palace Museum, Taipei, 1982, cat. no. 20.

A bowl of this design in the Palace Museum, Beijing, from the Qing court collection, is illustrated in Geng Baochang, ed., Gugong Bowuyuan cang Ming chu qinghua ci [Early Ming blue-and-white porcelain in the Palace Museum], Beijing, 2002, vol. 2, pl. 146, where it is stated that this design was frequently copied in the Kangxi (1662-1722) and Yongzheng (1723-35) periods, and where a Xuande-marked copy attributed to the Kangxi reign is illustrated, pl. 179; two such bowls in the Taipei Palace Museum were included in the Museum’s exhibitions Ming Xuande ciqi tezhan mulu/Catalogue of a Special Exhibition of Hsuan-te Period Porcelain, Taipei, 1980, no.36, and Mingdai Xuande guanyao jinghua tezhan tulu/Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Selected Hsüan-te Imperial Porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, Taipei, 1998, no. 62.

A bowl reputedly from the Summer Palace, Beijing, and later the collections of K.L. Dawes, J.F. Woodthorpe and Frederick M. Mayer, was sold in our London rooms, 20th May 1949, lot 84, and 6th April 1954, lot 90, and at Christie’s London, 25th June 1974, lot 90; a second bowl from the Woodthorpe collection, sold in our London rooms 5th June 1956, lot 112, was included in the Venice exhibition 1954 together with a bowl from the collection of Sir Harry and Lady Garner, sold in our London rooms, 21st November 1961, lot 36, see Mostra d’Arte Cinese/Exhibition of Chinese Art, Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 1954, cat. nos. 642 and 643; another sold in our London rooms, 24th March 1964, lot 98 and now in the collection of Asia House, New York, is illustrated in Denise Patry Leidy, Treasures of Asian Art: The Asia Society’s Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, New York, 1994, pl. 176; one from the collection of Major L.F. Hay was sold in our London rooms, 16th June 1939, lot 92; one from the R.H.R. Palmer collection and later the Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong, was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 17th January 1989, lot 567, and 3rd November 1996, lot 546; a bowl from the collections of President Herbert Hoover, Mr. and Mrs. Allan Hoover, and Ira and Nancy Koger was sold in our New York rooms, 27th November 1990, lot 6; one from the Su Lin An collection, was sold in these rooms, 31st October 1995, lot 315; and a bowl from the Manno Museum, Osaka, was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 31st May 2010, lot 1856.

This bowl comes from the private collection of H.R.N. Norton, who had visited China in the late Qing dynasty (1644-1911), established himself as a dealer in London in the 1920s/30s, and according to Roger Bluett, was “the only British dealer to have built up a significant private collection of Chinese art, which he kept at home in fitted boxes. He did this in his modest and unassuming way by taking home exceptional pieces, from time to time, over the years, when they came his way.” (Roy Davids and Dominic Jellinek, Provenance. Collectors, Dealers and Scholars: Chinese Ceramics in Britain and America, Great Haseley, 2011, p. 340). His private collection was sold in two sales at Replica Shoes ’s in 1963.

此笠式盌，所繪花果紋精美雅致，誠明初青花紋飾之傑作，宣德官窰之經典。可證青花瓷器漸為中國宮廷所喜。較之永樂青花器形偏大且多作出口外銷，宣德製瓷，無論器形大小亦或圖案風格，皆依宮廷之好，寫宣德年款，技藝精湛。

此六瓣笠式盌，更形優雅，可窺宋代景德鎮所製白瓷原貌。形態各異之花果紋於永樂年間多見於他類器形，此盌紋樣或僅現於宣德時期，然可比一無款盌例，圖案類同，錄於《明代初年瓷器特展目錄》，故宮博物院，台北，1982年，編號20。

見一相似盌例，清宮舊藏，載耿寶昌，《故宮博物院藏明初青花瓷》，北京，2002年，卷2，圖版146，作者提及此類花果紋笠式盌於康熙及雍正年間多有仿製，並錄一康熙仿宣德款例，見圖版179。另有兩仿款盌例，藏台北故宮，收錄在《明宣德瓷器特展目錄》，台北，1980年，編號36，及《明代宣德官窰精華特展圖錄》，台北，1998年，編號62。

另可比一例，傳原屬圓明園藏，後分別為 K.L. Dawes、J.F. Woodthorpe，及 Frederick M. Mayer 遞藏，售於倫敦蘇富比1949年5月20日，編號84，及1954年4月6日，編號90，後再售於倫敦佳士得1974年6月25日，編號90。Woodthorpe 舊藏中亦見一例，售於倫敦蘇富比1956年6月5日，編號112，並與迦納爵士所藏一盌同展於1954年威尼斯雙年展；後者售於倫敦蘇富比1961年11月21日，編號36，兩盌均見《Mostra d’Arte Cinese》，義大利總督宮，威尼斯，1954年，圖錄編號642及643。亦有一例，售於倫敦蘇富比1964年3月24日，編號98，現藏紐約亞洲協會，錄 Denise Patry Leidy，《Treasures of Asian Art: The Asia Society’s Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection》，紐約，1994年，圖版176。L.F. Hay 少校另藏一例，售於倫敦蘇富比1939年6月16日，編號92。仍見一例，為 R.H.R. Palmer 舊藏，後入香港徐氏藝術館，售於香港佳士得1989年1月17日，編號567，及1996年11月3日，編號546。及一盌例，先後為赫伯特·胡佛總統，阿倫·胡佛伉儷，及 Koger 伉儷典藏，售於紐約蘇富比1990年11月27日，編號6。大阪萬野美術館亦存一盌例，售於香港佳士得2010年5月31日，編號1856。

此盌出自諾頓舊藏，諾頓曾於清末赴中，1920-30年代於倫敦開設古董商行，Roger Bluett 稱其乃「唯一一位擁有重要中國瓷器私藏的英國古董商，作風謙遜低調，經年累月，見重器即納自藏，所藏之器均細心置於特製匣中，藏於自宅。」（Roy Davids 及 Dominic Jellinek，《Provenance. Collectors, Dealers and Scholars: Chinese Ceramics in Britain and America》，Great Haseley，2011年，頁340）。1963年，Norton 舊藏經蘇富比分兩場拍賣會釋出。