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Scientific Analysis Report: A thermoluminescence analysis report issued by Oxford Authentication on 4 August 2026, based on sample number P126j95, sets the firing date the one sample taken between 350 and 550 years ago, consistent with the dating above. A copy of the report accompanies this lot.
Expert’s note
Commanding in form, impeccably painted, and brilliantly orchestrated across every register, the present vase is a tour de force of Ming blue-and-white porcelain and a magnificent example of this exceptionally rare and highly admired group of meiping. Its intense purplish-blue cobalt, pronounced ‘heaping and piling,’ dense stippling, and softly blurred outlines are hallmarks of the blue-and-white painting perfected during the fifteenth century, particularly under the Yongle and Xuande emperors, through the use of iron-rich imported sumaliqing. This celebrated manner was revived with remarkable fidelity during the Yongzheng reign, making the finest eighteenth-century interpretations extremely difficult to distinguish from Ming originals such as the present vase. Indeed, other early Ming examples from this important group have previously been misidentified as eighteenth-century works: a Yongle meiping sold at Sotheby’s New York, 21 September 2005, lot 64, retained an old label erroneously identifying it as Qianlong.
The present vase was previously assigned a Yongzheng date, and subsequently submitted by us to Oxford Authentication with a presumed fifteenth-century date based on its distinctive painting. The resulting TL analysis definitively excludes an eighteenth-century firing and confirms its identification as a rare Ming work of the fifteenth to sixteenth century.
China. Superbly potted, the baluster body rising from a slightly splayed foot to full rounded shoulders and a short waisted neck with a rolled lip. The exterior is exquisitely painted in rich tones of cobalt blue with fruiting branches of finger citron, peach, and pomegranate, framed above and below by narrow ruyi bands. The shoulder is encircled by a broad collar of pendent petal lappets densely filled with ruyi scrolls and stippled grounds, while the lower body is decorated with auspicious bats in flight amid stylized clouds.
The cobalt is of an intense purplish-blue tone with pronounced ‘heaping and piling,’ minute dark speckling, and softly blurred outlines, lending remarkable depth and vitality to the decoration.
Provenance: Collection of Axel Lagrelius, Sweden, and thence by descent. Axel Lagrelius (1863-1944) was a Swedish chemical engineer, industrialist, and noted art collector, distinguished by his close involvement in scientific and cultural exchange between Sweden and East Asia. He sponsored several major expeditions, including Alfred Nathorst’s journeys to Spitsbergen in 1898 and Greenland in 1899, Otto Nordenskjold’s Antarctic expedition of 1902-1904, and, from 1916 onward, expeditions to China led by Johan Gunnar Andersson. In recognition of his public service, he received several honorary titles and was appointed Superintendent of the Court in 1907. In 1926, Lagrelius accompanied the Swedish Crown Prince on his journey to China. He was also a founding member of the China Committee and an investor in the Karlbeck Syndicate, which acquired important Chinese works of art in China through Orvar Karlbeck between 1928 and 1932.
Condition: Very good condition with expected wear and manufacturing irregularities including a tiny firing crack to the interior mouth. Minor fritting along the rim. A small hole from sample-taking, now filled.
Weight: 3.7 kg
Dimensions: Height 33.7 cm
The sublime power of this vase rests above all in its cobalt painting. Its rich purplish-blue recalls the effect of sumaliqing, the iron-rich imported cobalt associated particularly with Yongle and Xuande wares. Where the pigment accumulated at the ends of brushstrokes, in overlapping washes, or in other heavily charged passages, it fired into irregular blue-black concentrations—the celebrated ‘heaping and piling’ effect—which gives the branches an almost three-dimensional presence. Elsewhere, the gentle bleeding of the cobalt beneath the glaze softened the outlines, while dense stippling articulated the skins of the fruits and the intricate ornament at the shoulder. The result is the assured yet subtly diffused manner for which fifteenth-century blue-and-white painting is so highly prized.
The fruiting branches of finger citron, peach, and pomegranate form the sanduo, or ‘Three Abundances,’ an auspicious rebus for the blessings of happiness, longevity, and numerous descendants. The finger citron, or Buddha’s hand, signifies happiness and good fortune, the peach promises long life, and the seed-filled pomegranate invokes abundant progeny. Bats among clouds reinforce the wish for blessings. The freely spreading branches are held within a disciplined sequence of ruyi borders and petal lappets, uniting naturalistic observation with the rigorous decorative organization perfected on early Ming blue-and-white porcelain.
Literature comparison:
Compare a related blue and white moonflask with a similar heaping and piling effect, dated to Yongle period, 1403-1425, in the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, accession number 10855.
Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 4 October 2011, lot 11
Price: HKD 168,660,000 or approx. EUR 27,300,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: An outstanding blue and white vase with fruit sprays, meiping, Ming dynasty, Yongle period
Expert remark: Compare the closely related form, decoration, motifs, and manner of painting with similar cobalt tones and pronounced ‘heaping and piling’.
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