Vase, Meiping Shape, Kangxi period, 1662/1722

Not on View

Medium

porcelain with pale blue glaze

Dimensions

overall: 21.3 x 10.8 cm (8 3/8 x 4 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Widener Collection

Accession Number

1942.9.495

Artists / Makers

Chinese Qing Dynasty (artist)

Image Use

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Inscription

in standard script on the base in underglaze blue in three vertical lines of two characters each: Da Qing Kangxi nian zhi (made in the Kangxi reign of the great Qing dynasty)

Provenance

Richard Bennett, Northampton, England; sold 1911 to (Gorer, London); (Dreicer and Co., New York, agent for Gorer, London); sold 1913 to Peter A. B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; inheritance from Estate of Peter A. B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; gift 1942 to NGA.

Associated Names

Bennett, Richard
Dreicer & Co.
Gorer
Widener, Joseph E.
Widener, Peter Arrell Brown

Technical Summary

A large chip appears on the flange at the bottom. There are a few minor glaze flaws, including two small wormlike lines below and to the left of the chip, and some pinholes and scattered dark spots in both the blue glaze and the usual colorless glaze that covers the shallow white base. The glaze thins along the raised edges of the ridge around the neck, on the two semicircular "ears" located on the shoulder, along the slightly rolled neck, and on the somewhat pointed edge of the overhang at the base. The fainter blue of these areas contrasts with the stronger blue of those nearby sections of pooled glaze. The rest of the vase is evenly colored with a pale blue midway between the two extremes.

Bibliography

1911: Gorer 1911, 73, no. 366, repro.

1911: Gorer/Blacker 1911, 2:pl. 161, left and right of center vase, not differentiated.

1942: Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 20.

1998: Bower, Virginia, Josephine Hadley Knapp, Stephen Little, and Robert Wilson Torchia. Decorative Arts, Part II: Far Eastern Ceramics and Paintings; Persian and Indian Rugs and Carpets. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1998: 81-83, color repro.