bottle BM-Franks.778.+

Period:Ming dynasty Production date:1590-1620 (circa)
Materials:porcelain
Technique:glazed, underglazed,
Subjects:heraldry,flower landscape musical instrument scholar
Dimensions:Diameter: 14.70 centimetres Height: 30.50 centimetres

Description:
Porcelain bottle with underglaze blue decoration. This bottle has a round drum-like body and a long tapering tubular neck and stands on a rectangular foot with an unglazed base. It is decorated in bright tones of underglaze blue with, on one side, a scholar seated in a landscape approached by a servant carrying a book; on the other side is a European coat of arms showing castles and lions. The neck, sides and foot are ornamented with stylized flowers and foliage. Dots around the edges of the design suggest milling on a coin. Typical of the late Wanli period, the porcelain and the glaze are not well fitting and the glaze has fritted away along the edges.
IMG


Comments:Harrison-Hall 2001:A flood of silver was shipped into the Spanish and hence the European economy from mines in the New World, especially Bolivia and Mexico, in the sixteenth century. This silver was then probably copied from the reverse side of a Spanish silver 8-reales or ‘piece of eight’, such as a 1588 example from the Segovia mint in the Department of Coins and Medals, British Museum. The shape of the bottle is based loosely on a Near Eastern metal or glass vessel. It is not a unique commission. Many identical bottles survive today. Comparable examples are in the private Mottahedeh Collection, the Peabody Museum of Salem, Massachusetts, the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Gementemuseum, the Hague, and the Dublin Municipal Gallery of Art. A bottle with the same design shown in another private collection. Another example with a cut-down neck and silver mount and with flowers in place of the figures is in the Museum of Anastacio Goncalves, Lisbon.