Blue and white vase with a Xuande mark and possibly of the period, £130,000 at Hansons.
The 9½in (24cm) vase carrying a Xuande (1426-35) six-character mark to the base but catalogued as an honorific piece came for sale from a vendor in Ealing, west London, with a guide of £100-150 but hammered at £130,000.
The estimated eight years of production during the reign of the Xuande emperor represent a highpoint of blue and white porcelain making. It has been estimated that at one time there were 58 imperial kilns, the source of great technical and artistic ingenuity and remarkable volume.
Blue and white vase with a Xuande mark and possibly of the period, £130,000 at Hansons.
Hansons’ vase has damage (specifically hairlines to the rim and the base) but is rare both in form and design. The shape, a variation on the classic meiping shape, is described as meiping shi guan (‘meiping-style jar’). The scroll of stylised lotus, with pomegranate centres and long stems issuing from the flowers appears to be specific to the Xuande period.
Only a handful of others are recorded but they include the example (in better condition) sold by Sotheby’s New York in September 2021 for $350,000 (£255,500). It had been part of the Rockefeller family collection since 1968.
Legal leanings
Hansons’ vase also came with a promising background: by descent from the great-great granddaughters of Percy Horace Braund Kent (1876-1963), a lawyer who in 1901 became a partner in a legal practice in Tientsin, China.
Kent & Mounsey was the only legal practice in the British Concession building, the Red House, a property that still stands at the junction of Racecourse Road and Bureau Street (now Machang Avenue and Pukou Avenue).
