Beschreibung:

Lot details China, 16th-17th century. The deep rounded sides rising from a short straight foot to an everted rim. Deeply carved with a continuous scene of four Mongolian hunters on horseback brandishing spears, one having just killed a wolf with his weapon, riding through a rocky landscape with grass and lingzhi as well as trees including paulownia, willow, and pine, against a floral diaper ground, the interior lacquered black. Provenance: Captain W. F. Collins (1865-1948), Beijing. Bluett & Sons, London, 26 May 1926. The Parry Collection of Chinese Art, London, acquired from the above and thence by descent. The base with an old collector’s label, ‘341’, partly obscuring a label from Bluett & Sons below. A copy of the original typed, stamped, and signed invoice from Bluett & Sons, dated 26 May 1926, addressed to “E. A. Parry, Esq.”, dating the present lot to the Ming dynasty, accompanies this lot. Captain Collins (1865-1948), was Bluett’s main supplier in China from February 1925 to January 1928. He also sold pieces to John Sparks and other dealers in London and Paris between the 1920s and 1940s. The Parry Collection was an important English private collection of Imperial enamel, lacquer, porcelain, and jades, started by Edward Arthur Parry (1879-1946), a barrister by trade, and his wife Angela Parry (née Scully, 1879-1977) from as early as 1919. The collection has passed down three generations of the Parry family, with many of the pieces having been acquired from the famous London dealers Spink and Bluett's. Condition: Good condition with old wear, natural age cracks and few minuscule losses to the red lacquer, the black lacquer with several shallow losses to the rim and associated old minor touchups. Weight: 119.0 g Dimensions: Diameter 10.7 cm With a finely carved hardwood stand dating to the Qing dynasty. (2) Lacquer bowls depicting hunting are extremely rare. Although hunting was extolled by early Ming Emperors who had inherited the tradition from the Mongol Yuan as a sign of military prowess and state authority, by the mid and late Ming period it was seen by the literati as a distraction from grave matters of state. The role of hunting became a charged area of contestation, where Ming Emperors and senior court ministers staked claims about rulership, ruler-minister relations, and the role of the military in the polity. The heirless Zhengde Emperor (1505-1521) was particularly passionate about hunting, much to the consternation of his ministers, see D. M. Robinson, Martial Spectacles of the Ming Court, Cambridge MA, 2013, pp. 214-220. Expert’s note: Research conducted by Hugh M. Moss of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat, concerning a red lacquer box and cover carved with a closely related scene of five Mongolian hunters (see Auction result comparison), has found that box “to be a lacquer version of inlaid wooden boxes decorated with a hunting scene and attributed to the 16th-century artist Zhou Zhu.” For this reason, we do attribute the present bowl, identical in quality to the aforementioned box, to Zhou Zhu as well. Zhou Zhu is recorded in the writings of the Ming and Qing literati as having worked in Yangzhou in Jiangsu province during the reign of the Jiajing Emperor. He was famous for his perfection of the technique of inlaying a wide variety of precious stones and other materials onto wood and lacquer. What distinguishes Zhou’s works from others is his use of a much broader range of material and the complexity of the inlay itself. By skillfully utilizing kaleidoscopic materials to depict extraordinarily vivid scenes adorning precious woods, Zhou pioneered a range of beautifully inlaid works of art distinctive for their three-dimensional quality with eye-catching effects. His work provided inspiration for numerous subsequent interpretations. Literature comparison: Compare a hardstone-inlaid box and cover, attributed to Zhou Zhu and depicting a Mongolian hunting scene, dated by inscription to 1537, at Sotheby’s Hong K