Bowl

This small, perfectly round bowl supported by a circular foot exemplifies the lightness and pure white color for which Chinese porcelain was so admired in the West. The bowl is decorated with a garland of stylized lilies and leaves, in which a finely brushed outline in dark blue is filled with a wash of lighter blue. Its shape and style of decora­tion were developed in one of the finest periods for the production of blue-and-white porcelain, the reign of Chenghua (1465–87), but the rendering of the design lacks the spontaneity and subtlety of the fifteenth-century pieces. Moreover, under the foot is the six-character mark of the late Ming reign of Wanli (1573–1620), which began some eighty-six years after the reign of Chenghua. Excellent copies of such bowls were made in the late seventeenth century during the reign of the Emperor Kangxi (1662–1722). Potters usually signed them with Chenghua marks to emphasize their resemblance to the earlier models, but it is possible that one of them chose to apply a mark from the Wanli reign.

Source: Vignon, Charlotte. The Frick Collection Decorative Arts Handbook. New York: The Frick Collection/Scala, 2015.

Roland Moore. Bequest of Childs Frick, 1965.

Source: Porcelains in The Frick Collection: Oriental and French. Volume VII. New York: The Frick Collection, 1974.