Description:
A SOAPSTONE GUI, MING DYNASTY
The stone of intense ochre color with a superb natural patina, deeply carved to depict scaly dragon handles and a yin-yang medallion on each side below a key fret border. Two-character inscription to base.
Provenance: Property from the estate of Countess Zichy Mihaline (from before 1929 until 1946). Acquired by a Hungarian private collector from the above at Buda Castle in 1946 and kept in the same family ever since.
Published: Exhibition of Oriental Art (Ausstellung Orientalischer Kunst), Budapest, 1929, Karl Csanyi und Zoltan Takacs, lot 308.
Condition: Some old chipping to rim and few natural flaws to the mineral.
Weight: 542.1 grams
Dimensions: Length 15.4 cm
Originally, the Gui was a bowl-shaped ancient Chinese bronze ritual vessel used to hold offerings of food, mostly grain, for ancestral tombs. These vessels had a revival during the earlier Ming dynasty and became very popular in bronze, pottery, and sometimes jade or soapstone. The shape changed somewhat over the centuries, but constant characteristics are a circular form with a wide profile from the side, standing on a narrower rim or foot. They usually have two handles.
Auction result comparison: Compare with a related archaistic soapstone vessel from The Erich Heinrich collection, Berlin, sold at Christies London, November 9th, 2010, in Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, lot 95.
明代皂石龍首雙耳簋
天然包漿,夾雜著紅褐色紋理,兩面各有一個陰陽符號紋飾,底部刻兩字
來源:Zichy Mihaline (1929年前至1946年)伯爵夫人遺產。一位匈牙利藏家于1946年在佈達堡上述遺產收藏中購得,並保留至今。
出版:Exhibition of Oriental, Budapest, 1929, Karl Csanyi und Zoltan Takacs, lot 308.
品相:邊緣處一些老磕碰,天然紋理瑕疵
重量:542.1 克
尺寸:長 15.4 厘米