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Cloth-bound hardcover with wrapper, English text with 134 colour plates, 172 pages, 26 cm x 33 cm. The Mingzhitang Collection of Sir Joseph Hotung is one of the finest collections in the world to capture the essence of early Chinese blue-and-white porcelain. With twenty outstanding examples, it concentrates on the first hundred years of China s blue-and-white production, in the late Yuan (1271 1368) and early Ming (1368 1644) dynasties a period that was never surpassed in artistic ingenuity and material quality. The charisma and the energy of the masterly paintings on porcelain created in the Yuan dynasty at the kilns of Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province, which made this genre so influential and universally admired, are represented with twelve exceptional examples, most of them unique. They demonstrate the powerful blue-and-white style developed under Mongol rule, when the artisans appear to have been working with few restraints. The collection equally documents the much more refined and sophisticated early Ming style of the Yongle (1403 24) and Xuande (1426 35) reigns, when production was closely controlled by an imperial court with exceptionally high standards. Here, the collection illustrates two stylistic strands that existed side by side: porcelains decorated completely in Chinese taste and vessels in the shapes and patterns of Islamic metalwork from countries in close diplomatic contact with the Chinese court. The wares of this period defined imperial porcelain styles until the end of China s last dynasty. The book is lavishly illustrated and contains a general introduction on early Chinese blue-and-white porcelain, an extensive description, documentation and discussion of each piece, and a bibliography. Seller Inventory # PGCA01
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