Antique Chinese 17C Chongzhen period Transitional Chinese Porcelain Ewer

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Condition Report: Mouth with some fritting/fleebites, base rim with small chip and some fritting. Both lower and upper end handle with firing flaw and small tension line. Filled chips/fritting to lower outside handle.

Sharing with you this very rare Transitional period jug. It is unusual in the combination of European and Chinese motifs at a date so early in the seventeenth century. Few pieces with this combination exist and the masks that appear on them, like ours, are all flanked by leafy “wings.” A tall bottle vase in the Museum Het Princessehof, Leeuwarden, is decorated with lower foliate scrolls surrounding landscape medallions beneath a band of European-style masks and Turkish-style tulips (see illustration in Jörg 1984, no. 12, p. 54 and Scheurleer 1974, no. 50, p. 212).

The explanation that Jörg supplies can also be applied to our jug in that, “The decoration is not freely painted over the whole surface, but divided up into bands and medallions, which suggests that this vase should be dated relatively early as an example of a stylistic stage between Kraakporselein and Transitional ware.”

The form of our jug almost certainly derives from a European stoneware or earthenware prototype. It can be assumed that the Chinese potters were supplied with a European design of a putto or angel and then created their own scheme of decoration, incorporating rather naive interpretations of the European faces. The few other related jugs with mask bands all have decorative schemes differing slightly from ours, suggesting that the Chinese painters enjoyed a certain amount of artistic liberty that was typical of the Transitional period (see Jörg 1995, no. 4, p. 19 for a jug in the Boymans-van Beuningen Museum decorated with bands of masks and leaf motifs; Mudge 1986, no. 206, for a jug in the Ashmolean Museum with masks above landscape panels as seen on the Princessehof vase mentioned earlier; Scheurleer 1980, no. 84, p. 210 for a jug in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington with florets replacing the masks). This type of ware was probably ordered by the Dutch for shipment to Batavia and then distributed to the general Dutch market.

With thanks to The Chinese Porcelain Company, who pictured and described a very similar piece in their book. See gallery also.

A similar piece can also be found here:
A rare vase, Ming Dynasty, Chongzhen Reign, ca. 1640 (Transition period) – Alain.R.Truong

Country of origin: China
Date: Chongzhen Period Ca. 1640

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