LONDON.- From 28 October to 15 November 2024, Eskenazi hosts an exhibition celebrating blue and white porcelain from the Yuan and early Ming dynasties, the first dedicated to the subject to be held at the gallery since 1994. The Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) saw the invention of blue and white porcelain as we know it today, producing a ware that has since been craved, copied, and widely celebrated worldwide.

Blue and white porcelain from the Yuan and early Ming dynasties presents seven exceptional and distinctive objects chosen for their quality including a cup, five dishes and an extraordinary guan jar – one of the rarest porcelain objects to be shown at Eskenazi. Each of these objects showcases the extraordinary achievement of potters creating blue and white porcelain in the 14th and early 15th century; its manufacture would baffle Europeans for centuries until the beginning of the 18th century when the Meissen manufactory mastered the technique.

The highlight of the exhibition is a magnificent and extremely rare guan jar which embodies the innovative, bold and ground-breaking nature of Yuan dynasty porcelain. It is one of a select group of only five known Yuan porcelain guan jars of this design, three of which are in museum collections (the British Museum, London; the Palace Museum, Beijing; and the Hebei Museum, Shijiazhuang). The other was acquired by Eskenazi in 2002 and is now in a private collection. Together, the five jars form a small group likely made for a patron at the highest level of Yuan society. They are not only unusual and visually striking, but technically would have been at the cutting edge of Yuan porcelain production, featuring the combined use of painted underglaze cobalt blue and underglaze copper-red decoration with applied relief elements using moulding, carving, incising and beaded borders.

Illustrating the international influence and timeless appeal of Chinese blue and white ceramics, the exhibition also includes a Ming dynasty ‘three lotus’ dish closely related to an example in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The Eskenazi example bears a seventeenth century inscription indicating that it once belonged to the Mughal emperor Alamgir Shah (1658-1707). A Ming dynasty ‘grape’ dish is of the type that inspired Iznik potters in the 16th century; five similar examples which were formerly kept in the Ardabil Shrine are now in the National Museum of Iran, Tehran. The current example was last shown at Eskenazi in 1989 as part of the exhibition Chinese Art from the Reach Family collection.


Underglaze blue porcelain ‘grape’ dish. Ming dynasty, Yongle period, 1403 - 1424, Diameter: 37.8cm

Blue and white porcelain has always been a particular favourite of the company’s founder, Giuseppe Eskenazi, and the gallery has been handling works since 1960. All but two of the objects in this exhibition have previously been handled by the gallery. This includes a large Yuan dynasty underglaze blue porcelain dish with a beautifully painted central scene of a lotus pond that was formerly in the celebrated collections of both E. T. Chow (1910-1980) and Hans Konrad König (1923-2016); it was shown alongside the ‘three lotus’ dish mentioned above at Eskenazi’s autumn exhibition in 1994, the last time the gallery held a show dedicated to blue and white porcelain.

A remarkable Ming dynasty ‘Three Friends of Winter’ dish was placed in a private collection through Eskenazi in the 1990s and has subsequently been on loan at Denver Art Museum (1995-2005) and Middlebury College Museum of Art, Vermont (2006-2015). The grouping of bamboo, prunus and pine, known collectively as the ‘Three Friends of Winter’, is an enduring motif in China, found in painting and throughout the decorative arts. The bamboo was valued for its endurance, the ability to bend but not break while the pine, as another evergreen, was also seen as a symbol of fortitude. The prunus is one of the earliest flowering trees and was also associated with resilience and rejuvenation. Together, the three came to symbolize fortitude and determination and by extension, the ideal qualities of a Confucian ‘scholar-gentleman’.

Another object in the exhibition which has previously passed through the gallery is a Ming dynasty cup painted with flowering branches which is similar to two examples now in the National Palace Museum, Taipei. It has a long and distinguished exhibition history having previously been on display at Philadelphia Museum of Art (1949), The Art Institute of Chicago (1949-50), Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts (1959), Fogg Art Museum, Massachusetts (1959), and the Oriental Ceramic Society (2016). A blue porcelain ‘pomegranate’ dish bears the mark of the emperor Xuande (1426- 1435) and was produced at the Jingdezhen kilns for the imperial court. Only a handful of similar examples in blue and white from this period are known; four are in museum collections (the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo, National Palace Museum, Taipei and Suzhou Museum).

This autumn exhibition coincides with the 27th edition of Asian Art in London (30 October to 8 November 2024), the annual event that unites London’s Asian art dealers, major auction houses and societies in a series of selling exhibitions, auctions, receptions, and seminars. Visit www.asianartinlondon.com for more information.

Eskenazi Ltd is widely recognised as one of the world’s leading galleries for Chinese and East Asian works of art and its exhibitions are always eagerly awaited for the rarity and beauty of the objects offered. The family business was founded in Milan in 1923 and the Eskenazi name has since become synonymous with expertise in this area. Giuseppe Eskenazi, who has been head of the business for over fifty years, has an unrivalled reputation for his knowledge and love of the subject and clients have included over eighty of the world’s major museums as well as private collectors.

While Eskenazi’s London office had opened much earlier in 1960, it was not until 1972 that a purpose-built gallery space for themed exhibitions was opened at Foxglove House, Piccadilly, having been designed by John Prizeman (1930-1992), past president of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Giuseppe’s son Daniel joined the business in 1993, and the same year it moved to a specially designed six-floor gallery on Clifford Street in Mayfair, London, designed by Jon Bannenberg (1929-2002). This has since been the venue for the company’s annual autumn exhibitions which are always eagerly awaited for the rarity and beauty of the objects offered. More recently, it also hosts a summer series of exhibitions dedicated to more diverse and accessible subjects related to East Asian art and the aesthetic of the Chinese literati.

Visit www.eskenazi.co.uk for further details.